Coronavirus Special Coverage

A collection of news posted throughout the week for those that want signal, not noise.

  • Previous coverage - all of our posts in this ongoing series.
  • Coronavirus status page - learn how to prepare for possible spread to your area. Scenarios, shopping lists, background info and everything else you need, all in one place.

Dr. Erickson’s viral “COVID-19 Briefing” video is dangerously wrong

In a viral YouTube video that many on our social feeds are citing as proof that the lockdowns were a costly mistake, a California osteopath named Daniel Erickson uses testing results from his chain of emergent care clinics to make the following familiar (and wrong) claim: we don’t have to worry about COVID-19 because it’s less dangerous than the seasonal flu.

But like most viral “science” videos on YouTube that aim to prove everything you know is a lie, the video doesn’t hold up to analysis. You’ll be dangerously misinformed if you buy what this clip is selling.

Update: YouTube has taken the video down, and the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) have released a joint statement condemning the video as financially motivated and inaccurate.

A catalog of errors

Erickson is, in fact, a physician, although not an MD. He is not an infections disease expert, immunologist, epidemiologist, or researcher. He’s also not in active practice. But we must evaluate claims on their merits, and the argument presented in this video has no merits. It is complete bunk (to use a technical term).

The video, which is better browsed in transcript form, is a catalog of errors that range from the blatantly wrong to the subtly misleading. But the central and most inexcusable flaw of the entire video is this. Erickson confuses test positivity rates (i.e., the percentage of positive PCR tests among a group of people who were actually able to get tested for COVID-19) with community attack rates (i.e., the percentage of people in a whole population who have had COVID-19).

We’ll talk about why this distinction matters, but first let’s look at what Erickson said in the briefing:

So if you look at California—these numbers are from yesterday—we have 33,865 COVID cases, out of a total of 280,900 total tested. That’s 12% of Californians were positive for COVID. So we don’t, the initial — as you guys know, the initial models were woefully inaccurate. They predicted millions of cases of death — not of prevalence or incidence — but death. That is not materializing. What is materializing is, in the state of California is 12% positives. You have a 0.03 chance of dying from COVID in the state of California.

Here’s the obvious reason why using a 12% test positivity rate to claim that 12% of Californians already have SARS-COV-2 is so dangerous. Right now, the USA and many other countries are limiting their testing only to people who show symptoms of COVID-19. Furthermore, in many parts of the country since this all began, only those with the most severe COVID-19 symptoms have been tested. We aren’t testing 100% of the population.

What Erickson does in this video is conceptually the same as sampling a communion line to figure out how many Catholics live in California. Or estimating the prevalence of alcoholism by sampling an AA meeting.

It may be hard to believe that a physician would do something so dumb, but that’s exactly what he’s up to in this clip.

As if to remove any doubt that he really is doing this, Erickson goes on to make the exact same flawed argument with numbers from New York, the USA as a whole, Sweden, and Norway. This obvious mistake is central to his entire argument in the video.

A closer look at test positivity rates in the US

The story is different in Iceland and a few other countries with effective mass-testing programs. But in the United States, the tested population is very different from the general population. The tested population is much more likely to have COVID-19 than the larger community. In practice, that means the test positive rate actually shrinks as the disease spreads and health officials relax the testing criteria.

For example, test positivity is currently at about 8% in hard-hit Washington State. In barely-hit Puerto Rico, though, test positivity is 12%. Why the backwards numbers? To start, Washington State has about four times as many deaths per capita as Puerto Rico. Because Washington has been hit so much harder, they’re casting a far wider net with their testing program.

For another example, consider trends over time. In the state of Washington, test positivity was at 100% until March 5. The next day, test positivity fell to 30%. Ten days later, it was 10%. And it’s been hovering around 8% ever since. Washington, like most other places, started by testing only those with severe COVID-19 symptoms and a travel history that suggested exposure. But in the end, the state expanded the testing program and got a lower rate of positives.

Garbage in, garbage out

So, sure, Erickson misunderstands critical epidemiological concepts like test positivity and attack rate. But he also reaches conclusions that are totally at odds with the rest of his data.

For starters, Erickson claims COVID-19 has a lower fatality rate than the seasonal flu. Well, this season flu’s CFR is about .1%. By now, however, .2% of the entire population of New York City has died of COVID-19.

Even if we take the highest responsible data-based estimates from any source, only about 20% of the New York City population has tested positive for COVID-19. The positive rate might actually be much lower than that since that study sampled people in public spaces. That method has bias problems of its own. The virus hasn’t stopped spreading in New York City, so the fatality rate will almost certainly rise as the positive rate falls.

Let’s step away from the nonsense Erickson is pushing and go back to the real data. The latest serostudies and the most recent case and mortality data indicate the same thing we’ve seen, in broad strokes, since we first covered this topic in January. The fatality rate of COVID-19 is much higher than the seasonal flu and somewhat lower than SARS. If it runs rampant through the United States and infects most of the population, the death toll will be much higher than any seasonal flu in history.

If someone on your social media feed shares this video, please pass this article along. Everyone should have a chance to understand what’s wrong with its claims and conclusions.


  • 313 Comments

  • The topic ‘Dr. Erickson’s viral “COVID-19 Briefing” video is dangerously wrong’ is closed to new replies.
    • Mar Tam

      Thank you very much for this well-written corrective.

      7 |
      • A C Kay Mar Tam

        Don’t be too sure, Mar Tam and Pavel.  There is a lot of good common sense in his video. As a healthcare professional myself for over 25 years, I have gone through many seasonal influenza sagas with higher death rates, unfortunately. Our country has never shut down for the influenza virus.  Why for this one?  Is it because it is more virulent?  Not yet.  And with all the physicians being “encouraged” by their administrations to use Covid-19 as a co-morbidity, even when the physician KNOWS the cause of death was because the guy was coughing his lungs out because of his 40 year cigarette habit, how can we KNOW these are going to be accurate numbers? Sounds like some entity wants Covid to be much more deadly than it most probably is…Some entity that doesn’t like to lose.  Take everything you read and hear with a grain of salt and do your own research.  You will feel much more comfortable about all this mess.

        20 |
      • roygbiv A C Kay

        I don’t know what kind of “health care professional” you are but I am an emergency physician and I crunched Erickson’s numbers about Norway and Sweden. It is easy to see with simple division and multiplication that what he suggests is directly and dramatically contradicted by his own numbers. He casually brings up Norway and Sweden as similar populations, Norway lockdown and Sweden no lockdown, and gives a bunch of numbers explicitly stating 1765 deaths in Sweden and only 182 deaths in Norway. He throws in that California has 1227 deaths. As if he’d made his case, he quickly sums up saying “millions of cases, very small death” and moves on to talk about increasing rates of child and spousal abuse caused by home isolation. So Sweden has only twice the population of Norway and 5 times the deaths per population unit! And California has 3.6 times the population of Sweden and only 1227 deaths. Norway and California were cautious, Sweden not so much. So his own numbers say the opposite of what you think he has proved. And his numbers are about a week old and the numbers are even worse now. Wake up.

        8 |
      • See Tree roygbiv

        Uh, excuse me. Fellow physician here. Little confused about something here:
        “So Sweden has only twice the population of Norway and 5 times the deaths per population unit! ”
        Yes. Because as he stated, they locked the place down. Less cases. Less deaths. As soon as Norway opens shop and people start congregating and spreading this remarkably infectious disease, what do you think is going to happen to that mortality rate? The same thing can be said with California, which locked down.
        If you want numbers, then look at the nation level. We have 6 million tested, with 1 million being positive. That is 17%. That is really, really hard to argue sampling bias with a disease with non-specific symptoms.

        16 |
      • roygbiv See Tree

        What do you think the point flattening of the curve is? As a physician you should know. It buys time for the science to catch up to the disease. Meaning, effective antiviral medication, understanding cytokine storm and developing drugs to interrupt it, identification of as yet unknown risk factors for terminal progression, and preventing overtaxing available resources (EMS, EDs and ICUs), and eventually a vaccine. The key to opening up is testing widely and should have been done in the Containment Phase in January and February. Now mitigation is all we have. Instead, executive branch was in Denial Phase and only reluctantly now adjusting. I can tell you my income is cut in half by the economic shutdown and, as an emergency physician, I depend on volume of patients. There is no salary or benefits other than what I manage. I am as eager to see people go back to work as anyone else, but I put my financial interests below my sense of responsibility to public health. The Urgent Care business owners, dressing up like clinicians are inverse to that in my opinion and are spurring the uninformed masses to revolt. This is irresponsible. Opening up the society can and must be accompanied by rapid testing. Only then can we switch to quarantining the sick and the at risk instead of the healthy. Of course the case fatality rates will be lower when the walking wounded are ultimately tested and counted. No one doubts that. But we are still learning who is really at risk and what the risks are, i.e. multiple organ system dysfunction in certain young people. We don’t even know if a patient can get sick again. Again, this should have been tackled 3-4 months ago by the president who abdicated his responsibilities. Now there is an industry of deniers, apologists and enablers. Unforgiveable.

        3 |
      • See Tree roygbiv

        Oh drop the nonsensical hysteria about encouraging revolt. These are practicing physicians, for one.
        Your numbers were drastically off about Norway vs Sweden.
        Yes- the main point of the lockdown is to flatten the curve and prevent the healthcare system from collapsing while allowing testing and vaccination programs to get into gear. That time has MOSTLY come so why are we still in lockdown? Are we locking down UNTIL we get a vaccine? Why the low fatality rates? We didn’t do this with previous outbreaks like Swine Flu.
        “We don’t even know if a patient can get sick again. ”
        Uh, yes we do. We have seen it. Which makes this extended lockdown even more pointless as it’s just spinning a wheel, indefinitely.

        9 |
      • ray lake See Tree

        Uh, excuse me – Erickson is NOT in active practice, he’s NOT even board certified in his field, he is NOT an infections disease expert, immunologist, epidemiologist, or most importantly, NOT a researcher. But he doesn’t forget to wear their scrubs to advertise their practice. So YOU can drop your uninformed, low information spreading apologetics. Sweden is in **10th place** out of every country on the planet for highest rates of deaths per million. Norway is 30th. GO AWAY.

        4 |
      • Italianogaspasser See Tree

        Boom!

        3 |
      • Merideth Page roygbiv

        For an ER doc in the middle of a pandemic you sure have a lot of time on your hands!!!!

        4 |
      • Melissa Bekker roygbiv

        So is all this testing done with influenza ??

        8 |
      • Clarke Van Meter roygbiv

        I call Bullshit.  They said statistically significant disagreement.  Here’s the website into which you can plug your numbers and prove them wrong.  I don’t know who is right but you certainly haven’t proven your case by sighting numbers that clearly have the “% move off a low base” problem.  So here it is:  https://www.easycalculation.com/statistics/statistical-significance.php   The doctors didn’t present their evidence but you didn’t argue against their actual argument.  You get an F.

        10 |
      • Italianogaspasser roygbiv

        . I remember what you are taking about. However, he does make some good points. The world Health Organization came out just today and said Sweden’s way of doing things is actually something they will look at in the future.  After crucifying them 3 weeks ago. I’m not big fan of the WHO. However, the political Doctors seem to love the WHO.  so I thought I would throw that out there. The beloved WHO said this! Just tonight actually . You’re also picking out one part of the 55 minutes he spoke.  You know the actual numbers are much higher of infected people.  You also know that this is not how we take on these viruses.  I mean we leaned this early in our science majors. We have data now.  We all should have waited to see how the numbers played out before saying anything! You do remember the 2 million predicted American deaths right?  What was that number based on,? It is way off the mark.  I never heard 1 academic on TV call this out.  How could they  have possibly known this?  Now, we have some data and we can see this a little better. Going in lock down was a bad move. That’s what they wanted everyone to do. so ok.  But simple science thought us that healthy people don’t do that.  So know when we come out of this people will be primed for infections. God for bid if it’s SARS CoV2!  Then everyone of these so called Doctors that are really politicians will say, “see I told you not to rush back! Then the lay public will buy into that narrative.  When you know good and well they set us up for that kind of response. There is so much wrong with this.  I knew the political garbage would get out of hand. However, science has no role in politics! Yet here we are. I guarantee you when this is said and done there will no significant difference between influenza and SARS CoV2 deaths. The argument will be, even if the % of deaths are close between the two. They will say more people are infected with SARSCoV2 so  more people died. of course that will equate to more deaths. However, the science will show no significant difference.  Plus remember, China was infecting us for weeks.  maybe months.  before we knew anything. So, we were caught off guard. The Good thing is this virus, in most of us (like Influenza) will do just fine.  The numbers will actually be better I think then  the common flu because you and I both know there are bogus Covid19 deaths.  I’ve talked to friends at 20 different hospitals at least.  that confirmed this. By the way I did look at new numbers.  When this is said and done. When we have time to analyze the numbers we will see who is right.  People suffered enough through this. It’s time to get back to living and treating other sick patients. Doing surgery on people that need procedures done. Not to mention,  to circle back. we never really quarantined anyway. You know it and I know it.  It wasn’t a real quarantine,  not close. I can’t believe what I hear on here from educated people.

        12 |
      • Wright on spot!

        4 |
      • Ralph Morton A C Kay

        Unless you have access to the relevant numbers and facts THEN NO! you cant do your own research . You can spew out fiction from the internet or some other flawed source. Listen to the experts they are on the front lines and have the facts as we know them.

        7 |
      • JAMI Ralph Morton

        They were basing on their numbers – they are not doing ‘research’ – they were presenting their data.   Furthermore, the numbers that come out of the CDC are bogus.  Providers are being forced to code cases as Covid when it is not the primary cause – so all the data is flawed.

        6 |
      • Jason Eisenberg A C Kay

        “I have gone through many seasonal influenza sagas with higher death rates, unfortunately.”

        So you were around in 1918?

        10 |
      • Bob Sigurd Mar Tam

        This article is far from being well-written. I have registered here just to comment on this. The comments below do not see the point I will describe to you.  The Sweden is the only true example that you need to study. This is the only free country as it appeared.  So, if you take the graphs of Sweden cases and deaths, you can clearly see that the cases do not grow exponentially. This is very important fact for you to grasp. The are not in any lockdown, and yet, there cases do not grow exponentially. Additionally, the graph has already reached a plateau 3-4 weeks ago. Now, lets take their numbers. Since there was no any measures in Sweden, then clearly, we can extrapolate like he did in the video. They have 2,355 deaths. Their population is 10,099,265.  This gives you 0.000233 or 0.0233% death rate. Even if you double that (for the right part of the bell curve), you will get 0.0466%. But, for the sake of the argument, lets triple it, it would give you 0.0699%  which is still less than 0.1 percent.  So, clearly, this article author does not understand anything, or he is supporting the same media agenda. And, I can assure you, this is not my only argument against this article. The video is the best I have seen so far. And, youtube removes it??? What gives???

        33 |
      • Truthful Bob Sigurd

        Your analysis is correct. The original posting by Ari Allyn-Feuer, is fallacious and mendacious. It is clear hubris is at play, as the video explicates, to a high degree, with what little mathematical construct is available, what has, and is, going on.

        Not withstanding the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machine was 1) not designed to do the test as it is being used for, and 2) the discrepancy of surety of efficacy, as used by different countries using different parameters of efficacy, (this makes statistical analysis nonsensical), death certificates being either 1) altered after the fact, and 2) an arbitrary covid death certified as causal, when comorbidity is evidenced, yet hidden, it is clear these two doctors have assessed the current state of affairs clinically, mathematically, and with reserved emotional content, and explained the true state of affairs, with the concurrent understanding of the current data available.

        Dr Buttar and Dr Siva are cognitively aware of the same situation, as they have explicated numerous times in their videos. Some of their videos are deleted, further evidencing the construct of the State, the suppression of free speech, and goes against common sense, in attempting to find truth.

        14 |
      • Glyn Thorman Bob Sigurd

        Spot on Bob. The term is Paradigm Paralysis or the refusal to believe conflicting evidence to accepted theory. Here you have a writer with limited medical knowledge presenting information that supports the media and refutes these doctors. Paradigm Paralysis states information that matches your perspective will be instantly clear and accepted, whether it is factually accurate or not.

        9 |
      • Christian Kläy Bob Sigurd

        Absolutely correct, Bob. I don’t see why this is so difficult to understand and finding it very disheartening to see CFR’s being thrown around as if they are IFR’s which can only be roughly estimated at this point which you and Erickson have exemplified for us.

        10 |
      • Jason Eisenberg Bob Sigurd

        Are you trying to calculate the Covid-19 CFR for Sweden? Do you realize you have only calculated the % of Swedes to die from the virus? They did not all catch the virus and their government did encourage voluntary social distancing, which has been very popular. Their # of dead is just their # of dead so far, and likely only a small % of their population has contracted the virus thanks to their popular voluntary social distancing efforts (although not as effective as mandatory policies in neighboring countries).

        5 |
      • Paul Woll Bob Sigurd

        Sweden did implement voluntary social distancing (which for most part is being adhered to) and most who can work from home are as part of that.   So of course this mitigation factor will and has impacted the growth rate.   Then you go do a stupid thing like taking their population and deaths to compute a death rate.   IFR is the main one we care about of those infected how many died.   CFR is rate based on number of cases.    Rarely does anyone calculate total population and use deaths to determine mortality rate as that is absurd in middle of a pandemic when likely 80% or higher have not even been infected yet.

         

        5 |
      • ray lake Bob Sigurd

        Sweden is in 10th place worldwide for deaths per million. Norway is 30th. You have NO ARGUMENT.  Erickson isn’t even practicing, not board certified, and  FAKE news made them instant FAKE ‘experts’, professionally/peer condemned by The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM), who: “… jointly and emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical societies and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health.” Here endeth the lesson.

        3 |
      • SusieQ ray lake

        Medical Association and societies are one of most political organizations.  My life – my control.  You can’t control people – and I won’t let you.   It belongs to individuals… We can’t save all lives – that is reality.  It is time to live in reality.

        It is petty… knocking down other doctors?  The doctors graduated from Harvard any better than others?  NO!

         

        8 |
      • JAMI Bob Sigurd

        It is not possible to conduct true scientific studies without a controlled population – and where are you going to find that with the wide variation of populations, environments, etc, around the world – let alone with no stratification for age, gender, pre-existing conditions, medications, etc.  etc.

        6 |
      • SusieQ Bob Sigurd

        Same here – I registered here for this purpose!  The people who can’t even diagnose nor treat even one patient is criticizing a practicing doctors….  Elitist!

        2 |
    • Pavel Minaev

      Thank you.

      10 |
    • Ray Mierta

      There is a huge difference between 2% of the population of the nation and 2% of all the people that live in New York. You should know that.

      5 |
    • Mike Marx

      Could you please explain: “Well, this season flu’s CFR is about .1%. By now, however, .2% of the entire population of New York City has died of COVID-19.”
      Is NYC a representative sample of the USA, or is the quoted 0.1% CRF only applicable for NYC?

      4 |
      • Lauren Anderson Mike Marx

        12,287 deaths in NYC divided by a population of 8.3 million is 0.148% not 0.2%. Just sayin’…

        4 |
      • Matt Bosco Lauren Anderson

        I remember from 2nd grade that .148 rounds to .1 not .2.  Is someone pushing a narrative here?  Maybe if he gets some more people to die of C-19, or illnesses that vaguely look like C-19, he can call it .3!

        7 |
      • Tom Henderson Matt Bosco

        Yes, Lauren was pushing a false narrative when she used a death count that was almost 5,000 low from the actual death count. 0.2% is the correct number when you use the actual number of deaths.

        9 |
      • Apparently you didn’t differentiate between New York STATE and New York CITY. I did. The death count is for New York CITY, which is what Mike Marx referred to. “By now, however, .2% of the entire population of New York City has died of COVID-19.” Here’s the link from the New York CITY health department:

        https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

        2 |
      • Keri Jane Matt Bosco

        No, the 8, after 4 would round that up to 150 (there is a 9 after the 8 too) which would round up to 0.2.

        -3 |
      • Wrong, someone didn’t pay attention in math class. The whole point of rounding is to get to the nearest whole number. You do not round up multiple numbers, you take the closest one to the whole number.

        4 |
      • Your math is correct, but there have been 16,936 COVID death in NYC as of 4/26 according to their health department. So you had to use an incorrect number of deaths to make your percentage come out the way you wanted it.

        7 |
      • Once again, you are referring to New York STATE, not New York CITY. Here’s the official number from the the New York CITY health department:

        https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

        4 |
      • Paul Woll Lauren Anderson

        Confirmed deaths:
        12,287
        Probable deaths:
        5,302

        8 |
      • Mike Kelly Lauren Anderson

        Over 17,600 deaths in NYC, not 12,287, as you say. I’m not sure where you got that figure. That’s over 0.2% of the total population, as the author indicated. Even if 20% of NYC has already been infected, that’s greater than a 1% IFR. and clearly the number of fatalities will end up being significantly higher than the current number.

        6 |
      • Paul Woll Lauren Anderson

        You should use a range 0.148% to 0.21% As of today.

        Confirmed deaths:
        12,287
        Probable deaths:
        5,302

         

        3 |
      • John Mosetich Mike Marx

        I believe The point being, He is comparing the death rate of those infected with the flu (.1) to the death rate of every living person in NY City. (.2)

        (currently 8.4 million people in NYC, 17,515 deaths puts this at .2110240963855%.  Please check my math on that.  I hate figuring percentages)

        The comment is to reflect that he is comparing two very different things, a subset of ALL humans in NY vs a subset of ONLY people in NY that have the FLU and the virus has still killed a higher percentage of people in that much larger subset.

        Currently the death rate overall in the US looking at JUST those that go in with the virus is at 4.5-5% and NOT .1%.

        6 |
      • Tom Henderson John Mosetich

        Exactly. I won’t be surprised to see the mortality rate come down some as we learn more, but it won’t get down as low as seasonal flu.

        3 |
      • For now… If you have 50 people in a room, 49 who have never been exposed to Corona and one who has it, the number of people who get infected and perhaps die will be high. However, as time goes on and we have people who are exposed to and recover, they are less likely to be infected in the future. So, five years from now, if 50 people are in a room together, one is contagious but 40 have already been exposed to and recover from the Corona, fewer people will get sick and possibly die in that group. I think that’s primarily what the doctors albeit perhaps in not the most accurate way, are really trying to say. People are getting hung up on the math and figures, while the spirit of what they are saying is that the more we are all exposed to the virus, while death rates may be higher in the short term, the better off we’ll be and the smaller the death toll in the long term.

        23 |
      • I agree with you 87.83%.

        8 |
      • No… it all depends on whether you are an already healthy person or you have any of those comorbidities.

        9 |
      • This reinforces your point. See the total # under “No underlying conditions”…https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-daily-data-summary-deaths-04282020-1.pdf

        7 |
      • Joe Kambeitz Ronald Mitchell

        Best link ever!

        0 |
      • Paul Woll Ronald Mitchell

        Confirmed deaths:
        12,287
        Probable deaths:
        5,302   Is todays actual data you will note that the PDF you link to only refers to confirmed cases.

        4 |
      • roygbiv Philip J. Sherman

        Problem is that it is not just people with easily identifiable risk factors such as age, lung disease, heart disease, HTN, DM, immunosuppression, etc. There are healthy young people who eat well and exercise and never get sick who are dying. There is likely an occult genetic switch triggered in some people who will get the worst of cytokine storm, capillary leak syndrome, pulmonary edema, hypoxemia, get intubated and die. I’ve seen it. I’ve intubated several. This is new and it is real.

        7 |
      • See Tree roygbiv

        I doubt it is something like a genetic switch. Maybe an epitope cross-reactivity that is triggering it. You see immunomodulation like that all the time in the body [celiac disease/herpes dermatiformis, for example].

        3 |
      • Katie b roygbiv

        Nice to have a person who knows of what he speaks chime in.  If only elderly were at risk, it would be too big of a price to pay. But stories of strokes and other deadly complications largely affecting people under 50, and often the caregivers, should be sobering to all. Do not understand why anyone would want to pad death statistics, that makes no sense to me.

        5 |
      • A C Kay Victor Schueller

        Victor, you might very well have hit the nail on the head.  Never saw such hysteria over what is, essentially, a very nasty bug but nowhere near as deadly as smallpox, hanta virus, ebola, Marberg, Dengue and the hemorrhagic fever from both Ebola and Dengue.   Sheltering in place weakens your immune system. So does sterilizing everything (which you truly can’t do anyway, thank goodness) kills off the weaker bacteria and viruses, leaving the Bold, Truly Nasty sucker alone in the field to infect you!  Let’s not be so quick to panic.  Rest easy knowing you’ve cleaned enough and let’s use some common sense.  And let’s get back to work!

        15 |
      • Jason Eisenberg A C Kay

        Sheltering in place for months or even a year is not going to weaken your immune system. You do not need to panic about your precious immune system so much. Rest easy knowing you’ve been exposed to enough germs over the years, and use some common sense. Being clean for a few weeks or months is not going to kill you!

        6 |
      • So you are saying the way to combat the virus is natural selection, rather than science, medicine, and social policy? Let the weak die, so in 5 years the remaining strong people won’t have to worry about any pesky virus? Until Covid-24 comes along, and we’ll have to sacrifice another chunk of the population to natural selection, to improve the collective health of mankind’s immune system?

        2 |
      • SusieQ Victor Schueller

        Exactly!   That is the difference between theory/math and reality.

        3 |
      • Another person who can’t tell the difference between New York CITY and New York STATE. The official count as of April 26 for New York City is 12,287. See the New York CITY health department information page here:

        https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

        -4 |
      • The link you provide shows 11’820 confirmed, 5’395 probable (17’215 estimated total) – NYC has officially reported 12’287 yes… these are all NYC, the 17K being used is not the state total… New York State is at 22’866. But do continue to be an angry beaver…

        8 |
      • As per the NYC data you linked, there’s currently 11,820 confirmed COVID-19 deaths and 5,395 probable COVID-19 deaths according to the city, and 12,287 deaths in NYC as reported by the State. If you combine probable and confirmed deaths from the city tally, you get around 0.2%. If you take the state tally, you get more like 0.146%. If you take only confirmed deaths reported by the city, you get 0.14%.

        All of that is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether the actual current percentage of people in NYC that have died of COVID is 0.14% or 0.2%: both of those are many times higher than the number of people that die from the flu every year. The point is that this is far deadlier than the flu.

        We don’t know many people have died specifically from COVID-19 thus far in New York, and we certainly don’t know how many will end up dying. We do know that this is already far deadlier than the flu. Lets take the lowest estimate: 0.14%. A 0.14% population death rate applied across the entire us would kill over 450,000 people. Unless you’re willing to accept that death rate, arguing over whether that’s a better estimate than 0.2% is completely missing the point.

        13 |
      • roygbiv Carlin Kersch

        thank you!

        5 |
      • Joe Kambeitz Carlin Kersch

        Deadlier for those with underlying conditions.. 0.005% for those w/o underlying.

        https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-daily-data-summary-deaths-04282020-1.pdf

        Those without underlying conditions made up 0.005% of the NYC deaths.
        1Underlying illnesses include Diabetes, Lung Disease, Cancer, Immunodeficiency, Heart Disease, Hypertension, Asthma, Kidney Disease, GI/Liver Disease, and Obesity

        7 |
      • Ellen X P Joe Kambeitz

        I’m trying hard but can’t say I know anyone without underlying conditions.  A bit like Bradshaw’s view of dependancy: alcoholism, eating disorders, drug addiction, exercise obsession, religious addiction… and the list goes on.  We’re all at risk.  Personally I’m not into Russian roulette.

        4 |
      • 100% wrong. Probable deaths are part of that total. So the page you sent us to shows 17,215 as of today. And those are NYC deaths.

        8 |
      • Paul Woll Lauren Anderson

        Again you fail to include the probable deaths.

        Confirmed deaths:
        12,287
        Probable deaths:
        5,302

        4 |
      • See Tree John Mosetich

        That can’t be true. We have tested 6 million people in the US and 1 million are positive. That is 17% of the population that are testing positive.

        If you extrapolated that by 50x [as we have only tested 2% of the WHOLE population], then that indicates that 50 million people have had coronavirus. Out of 50 thousand deaths.
        0.1% of those infected have died [50k/50m]

        5 |
      • Paul Woll See Tree

        You are repeating a fallacy that this article clearly points out

         

        4 |
      • This death rate is calculated using confirmed cases, which will give you this inflated figure. We all know that there are thousands more who were never tested and more who were asymptotic. USC has a study showing the death rate closer to .2%

        7 |
      • Bob Sigurd Mike Marx

        No! NYC is not a representative case of the USA. NYC is the largest city, densely populated with the public transportation. NYC does not even have trees in the streets. Their trash is damped on the streets.

        8 |
      • J Land Bob Sigurd

        Bob, two extremely important things to point out to you, since you are not familiar with NYC.  First, Manhattan has tons of trees! There are few trees only in the areas that define the business hubs (Wall Street, Times Square, etc)  I lived in three vastly different neighborhood in Manhattan, always on a tree lined street! Second, NYC refers to all five boroughs (Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island) and there are far more tree lined areas than ones with no trees. Whatever argument you’re making for NYC not being a representative case of the USA (which of course it isn’t) the examples you use, including the silly trash one, don’t make the point.

        5 |
    • enterthenumber

      Ari, seems to me that there might be some confusion here. The 12% number comes from the positive rate of those tested. There were 280,900 tested and around 33k positive, which comes out to around 12%. The next sentence was poorly phrased and out of context it seems like he’s saying 12% of all Californians have already tested positive, but what he’s actually saying in that 12% of those 280k tested positive, not 12% of all Californians. Seems like what happened here is one or two words of clarity were missed. Taken in context and knowing the numbers he used and those numbers coming out to 12%, he wasn’t making the claim you’re saying he made.

      5 |
      • Mar Tam enterthenumber

        Erickson says twice that he’s referring to all Californians, and then goes on to use that number to make arguments about the fatality rate in the state, so it seems pretty clear that Ari is right that Erickson is misusing the number. He does the same thing later on as well when he’s discussing Norway.

        11 |
      • enterthenumber Mar Tam

        Right, though in the claims quoted in the article, he’s not. The 12% is the number positive from the number tested. He doesn’t say this is the total number positive across all of California. If you read through the rest of the transcript, he never makes the claim that the number positive is actually 12% and, in fact, every claim about positive is made in the context of those tested. Later in the article he does extrapolate, but he (1) says he’s doing just that and (2) extrapolates percent positive from those tested against percent positive from those tested, which is both transparent and fair to do. He also uses total confirmed deaths to calculate percentages based off total population, which is also entirely fair to do.

        -2 |
      • Sam Santana enterthenumber

        Except he WAS making the claim… from the video transcript as provided …”So if you look at California—these numbers are from yesterday—we have 33,865 COVID cases, out of a total of 280,900 total tested. That’s 12% of Californians were positive for COVID”

        He uses extrapolation as proof to make generalist statements throughout his argument…

        “We’ve tested over 4 million… which gives us a 19.6% positive out of those who are tested for COVID-19. So if this is a typical extrapolation 328 million people times 19.6 is 64 million.”

        9 |
      • enterthenumber Sam Santana

        He wasn’t though. 12% of 280k is around 33k. He was saying 12% of those tested were positive, which is true based on the numbers he prefaced the statement with. The “That’s 12% of Californians were positive for COVID” has to be read in context: he had just given numbers that add up to 12% positive test rate, granted he didn’t clarify this, but that’ll happen when you’re talking in front of cameras.

        As for the 4 million tested, that was around the number of tests across the entire US at the time the interview was given. The positive tests came back at 19.6%. He then extrapolated that out to the US population to give a point-in-time example.

        4 |
      • Mar Tam enterthenumber

        My friend, you’re really stretching to give him an excuse. First, he says twice that 12% of Californians are positive. This are his literal words. Maybe once you can say he just misspoke, but when he says the exact same thing twice, it seems pretty obvious he’s saying it because he really thinks you can extrapolate that 33k out of 280k to the entire state.

        Secondly, this is even more obvious because he repeatedly and explicitly makes the argument that you can extrapolate numbers from testing data! Are you telling me that when he (1) says twice that 12% of Californians are positive, and then (2) goes on to explicitly say we can extrapolate from testing data, that “no, he actually doesn’t think 12% of Californians are positive”?

        Thirdly, what is the point of your argument here? You obviously understand that he is extrapolating throughout the article, but for some reason are stuck on whether or not he’s doing that in this one particular instance. Even if you insist that he’s not extrapolating in the case of California, you accept that he’s doing it elsewhere, so what you need to address is the points Ari raised in the article, in which he explains why it’s wrong to do so.

        9 |
      • enterthenumber Mar Tam

        I just think it’s important to be honest and not nitpick lines out of a transcript to make a point. This has to be taken in context. The 12% positive rate cited is indisputably prefaced by total number of tests and how many of those were positive. This is then taken out of context because the “12% of Californians were positive for COVID” statement was clearly sloppy and should have been clarified, but, again, it was immediately prefaced by numbers nobody is disputing, so it’s not honest to then say the Dr was clearly saying 12% of all Californians test positive. Yes, he should have been more clear, but people should also take the whole claim in context.

        Ari then goes to use this claim the Dr never made to make a point about how he makes the same point (which, again, he never made) later in the interview. That’s just dishonest and it needs to be called out.

        11 |
      • Matt Bosco Mar Tam

        I watched this video last night.  And I’m probably more educated than most.  Erikson largely was correct, and this media attack is character assassination.

        In the video, he clearly says he is extrapolating the data.  He comes out with a number that is 0.03%.  That number is absurd as a practical matter.  Any reasonable person would recognize it as absurd.  You cannot hang him out to dry for something that is completely unrealistic and unreasonable to believe.  Using his methodology, you would get a 0.8% for New York State, which is on par with the 0.5% rate they estimate.  So his methodology might actually have accuracy in estimating the deaths to date, which is of no practical use since we already count how many people die.  Yes, it was dumb and pointless for him to come up with this statistic.  It’s not malpractice, it’s not anything.  The reason he probably did it is because the 12% infected rate he got when testing is almost identical to the 13.9% infection rate that New York got when doing a randomized sample of people outdoors.  If one were to assume that the infection rate is similar across the board, which is not unreasonable to fathom, then you would get that 0.03% number.  And that’s exactly the type of pondering and playing with numbers an egg-head would do.  Obviously, there are other variables at play because the 0.03% number does not fit the other data from other places and is likely completely wrong.

        The article compares Erickson’s sampling bias as EXACTLY like sampling a communion to see how many Catholics there are in the whole population.  Really?  And you would get 12%?  Not something much closer to 100%?  That’s absurd.  This is a perfect example of media errors and mischaracterizations, right here in this very article.  His sampling bias is nothing at all comparable to such a ridiculously off-point example.  The best evidence we have prior to this showed the infection rate as HIGHER than 12%.  Erikson simply did not draw the conclusion that the infection rate is not uniform across the country.  I recall the other doctor clearly stating they were drawing no conclusions about other localities.  Erikson may have been attempting to push an agenda here, but there is nothing wrong with his data.  And there’s no technical foul with his conclusions, although the 0.03% is obviously an artefact that no reasonable person would believe and should not have been presented.  What’s a reasonable person?  Me.  Anyone with a brain.  Certainly all these jealous doctors, anxious to get their names in the papers and happy to criticize him.

        The two doctors also said staying indoors would damage people’s immune systems and doctors came out and said this is 100% not true.  But it is true, at least for some people.  What happens if you overuse antimicrobial spray in your nose?  You get a nose infection because you kill all the weak germs, allowing the bad ones to thrive.  Might not be bad enough to notice, I don’t know, but they studied it in a lab in a university in my state–the results are in.  People who are staying in their house for two months, religiously disinfecting everything and themselves, are going to kill off every weak microbe and allow the top 0.01% to thrive without competition.  That’s going to weaken their immune systems as they fight off trillions of only the hardiest, most well-fed germs your home has to offer and make those people targets for opportunistic infections when they go back into the real world.  The weakest of the weak are going to get some weird disease they normally wouldn’t get.  Probably never can trace any individual back to the root cause, but we know it can happen and the long-term stats will show a mild increase in weird disease deaths post-Covid.  They didn’t give you a dissertation on the subject because it wasn’t the point of their presentation.  Maybe they’re wrong, but the theory is sound.  Don’t believe me?  Wash your hands every 10 minutes for a month, except for sleeping.  Use the strongest anti-microbial soap.  See what starts growing on your hands.

        Prior to seeing this video, I noticed data sets that showed COVID deaths decreasing at certain time points.  Negative deaths.  In other words, people coming back to life.  The conclusion I drew was C-19 was being labeled as the cause of death and corrected later.  And I figured they weren’t correcting them all if they were making the thousands of mistakes I was noticing.  And in this video he flatly presents what I found on my own.  They are being told to write up people as C-19 victims even though they aren’t.  There’s a a lot of information in this video that is objectively true.  If you can’t look passed a stupid number here, an irrelevant comment there, then you’re brainwashed.  He’s not right about 0.03% death rate.  So what?  What’s that have to do with the fact that the best data is telling us the death rate is 0.5%, when last month all of you were hysterical over it being 3.4%?  Either it suddenly mutated into something 90% less deadly or all the people you believed in were wrong.  Why aren’t you impeaching them? Going to find a reason to disagree with the best data we have?  Even if our best data is wrong, a betting man, of which I am, would never bet the official number would end at 1% or higher, and would probably bet on it being lower than the current estimates.  You obviously want to stay locked down.  Why do you people attack and dismantle everything that says this lockdown is no good?  And where’s your science to back it up?

        42 |
      • Kate Byrne Matt Bosco

        Thank you Matt, very well articulated.

        3 |
      • Matthew Mayer Kate Byrne

        How? Honestly.

        5 |
      • John Mosetich Matt Bosco

        So, Covid isn’t killing thousands and thousands of people.  What is?

        10 |
      • Matthew Mayer John Mosetich

        The deep state, man!

        4 |
      • Erik Wagner Matt Bosco

        When Erickson talks about “positivity” he needs to clarify by saying PCR positivity (currently infected with virus, shedding), or saying “seropositivity “(blood has sufficient titer of anti-SARS2 abs to show infection has already happened, immune system has responded). It’s possible to be both.    However, the point is that multiple studies in Europe and the US have recently (in past 2 weeks) shown that the infection rate is much, much higher than we thought, but so many people have few or no symptoms, so they aren’t being tested by PCR.  If you take those cases into the denominator, then yes, the fatality rate drops 30-60 fold.

        7 |
      • SusieQ Erik Wagner

        The video was meant for general public – it was not medical research conference.

         

        2 |
      • John Jack Matt Bosco

        Any person that states that they are more educated then most (where is your scientific data to prove that?! 🤣)  is just a narcissist and it’s obvious you love to hear yourself rambling  because no one else is listening to your ignorance

        -6 |
      • A. Aron Matt Bosco

        There is no science to back up quarantining healthy people, that’s why they cannot provide it. The original models were wrong no matter how you spin this.

        12 |
      • Clarke Van Meter Matt Bosco

        Matt, this is exactly how I heard it.  I was blown away to see that people thought he was committing that logic error.  Scott Adams disappoints again.

        3 |
      • Marilyn North Matt Bosco

        I also agree that this media attack is character assassination.  Erikson makes brilliant points in his presentation but, unfortunately, most everyone is fixated on his numbers.  He keeps emphasizing the point, “large number of infections, small amount of deaths” (relatively speaking) if you google the world map on coronavirus, it will tell you the exact timeline numbers, infections, recoveries and deaths.  I believe he is correct on many counts and i applaud him for standing out and speaking out against the status quo.  Just my humble opinion.

        8 |
      • Joe Kambeitz Marilyn North

        History will prove his truth

        4 |
      • roygbiv Matt Bosco

        Name me an antimicrobial nasal spray? You could make a case for nasal steriod sprays, which are common and do suppress the immune system and are used to treat bacterial sinusitis concurrent with an oral antibiotic like augmentin. Anyway, you have already said you were more educated than most, so thought you should know. You should also know that Erickson is easily disproved in the first 20 minutes of the video by his own numbers. He is dressed up in scrubs but is not practicing medicine and is a businessman trying to get his business back to life. Your “analysis” of the curve going up and down, stating it must mean it’s bogus or that people are coming back to life is particularly troubling in terms of your credibility.

        5 |
      • James Edington Matt Bosco

        3 |
      • What? No spike in deaths this year? hmm.

        6 |
      • Could you provide a link to where you found this data?

        Thanks

        4 |
      • Joe Kambeitz Matt Bosco

        Then slice the risk for underlying illness and see what you get for those w/o underlying illness.

        0.005% for those w/o underlying.

        https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-daily-data-summary-deaths-04282020-1.pdf

        Those without underlying conditions made up 0.005% of the NYC deaths.
        1Underlying illnesses include Diabetes, Lung Disease, Cancer, Immunodeficiency, Heart Disease, Hypertension, Asthma, Kidney Disease, GI/Liver Disease, and Obesity

        4 |
      • Matthew Bussard Matt Bosco

        Well stated Matt!  This is what I’ve been asking.  Statistics can be interpreted/skewed/weighted in multiple ways to reach a conclusion.  My question is with the science and microbiology of locking down the planet for an extensive amount of time and the impact looking forward.  You’ve hit the nail on the head.  Weakening immune systems from being in a closed and cleansed space for an extended period is not going to end well in the months and years ahead.  Especially if the new standard is that we lock down with each “outbreak” of an infectious disease.  Are we to quarantine healthy people from October to March during flu season?  History will not be kind to our national response.

        3 |
      • Juliana Kassim Mar Tam

        I agree with enter the number. He repeatedly said that it is impossible to get everyone tested, especially due to fear,coming forward.

        The percentage he gave was based on the people who had come forward for testing. From there, he extrapolated the result.

        7 |
      • Scott Robinson Mar Tam

        His extrapolation is obviously a worst case scenario. Does anybody think the disease stops with those tested? The case rate doesn’t stop increasing in non-tested, but the death rate most certainly does. So his conclusion: big numbers of infected, small numbers of deaths.

        7 |
      • Eroc enterthenumber

        These people don’t understand context. If you listen you know he made a statement clarifying of people tested prior to making the statement of “Californians”. He was not trying to include the entire population of California. But reading or listening comprehension seem to be a big problem with some.

        6 |
    • Stuart McColl

      Right … so now Google has taken the video down because it dosn’t fit “Community Standards” … the Freedom of Speech dosn’t fit “Community Standards” … let people watch for themselves and make their own judgments about their safety and their lives.  We’re tired of the non-sense quarantine … etc.  This nonsense labeling of every death possible as caused by “Corona Virus”.    It’s coming time for revolt.  You take away our freedom of speech … watch what happens next.

      11 |
      • ncrwhale Stuart McColl

        Freedom of speech and Google have nothing to do with each other. But that appears to be just the start of your misunderstandings.

        9 |
      • Matthew Mayer ncrwhale

        Private enterprise can do what it wants unless its business model precludes dangerous advice on life-saving measures I guess. Google got something right. Wish Facebook would pay more attention.

        8 |
      • Matthew Mayer Samuel Krall

        This has nothing to do with free speech. No one’s right to speak has been shut down. You misunderstand the term.

        What’s truly hilarious is the idea that private businesses shouldn’t be allowed to choose to take down that which they deem dangerous.

        Why are you advocating for communism?

        10 |
      • Shawn Fahy Matthew Mayer

        I have had this same conversation several times in the past few days. Freedom of Speech is greatly misunderstood by many.

        7 |
    • Kseniya Moyzeson

      The first of all Dr. Erickson is a practicing physician who runs his own urgent care clinic. It’s a public record, period. He might be right or wrong, but his is entitled to his own opinion. If his opinion does not coincide with what we hear on the news or media it does not mean that this video can be removed from YouTube after it had over 5 million views in just two days!  What kind of society do we live in? Are we supposed to believe everything we are told by our state officials and never question anything?

      I am not trying to argue about anything, but just for the record – the author of this article is an Artificial intelligence Engineer. What does his professional background have to do with medical field, in general,  let alone more specific fields relating to COVID-19 research? Why does this person think that this is appropriate for him to be a “ subject matter expert” and give his comments whether this doctor’s findings have errors or they are garbage in general? I am just amazed by some of your comments appreciating his “corrective”.  If you need a professional opinion make sure you know whom you talk to and check academic credentials or the “expert”.

      24 |
      • https://medicine.umich.edu/dept/dcmb/ari-allyn-feuer I don’t know what you’re talking about? His degree would beg to differ.

        8 |
      • See Tree Henry Beard III

        And I would beg to differ with your assessment.

        Being an epidemiologist doesn’t qualify you to make the sorts of statements the author is making. Otherwise he wouldn’t make stupid statements like trying to talk about sampling bias in a disease that has entirely nonspecific symptoms.

        Dr.Erickson [you know, the practicing physician (DO, not MD, so it is irrelevant)] actually does, he has seen the cases. And so have we. We have tested 6 million people in the US and 1 million are positive. 17% positivity rates. So far. You aren’t going to chalk that up to sampling bias.

        6 |
      • SusieQ Henry Beard III

        He works with numbers, models, theories….   Never diagnosed or treated one person!  I know many Harvard grad doctors without any common sense!

        Give me a break!

        3 |
      • Shawn Fahy Kseniya Moyzeson

        See the above discussion re: Freedom of Speech.

        4 |
    • Lauren Anderson

      The purpose of keeping people at home was to “flatten the curve”, to spread the severe infections out over time instead of all at once so medical facilities wouldn’t be overwhelmed. It wasn’t to prevent the virus from spreading. We accomplished that a couple weeks ago. New cases are diminishing, and because the virus is easily killed by the heat and sunlight new cases are expected to continue to decline. Except in a few places (NYC), hospitals were never overwhelmed, or anywhere close to it. From the data we can clearly open up almost the entire country right now and hospitals will not be overwhelmed.

      Unfortunately, the original purpose of “flattening the curve” has been replaced with the unrealistic goal of preventing infections. We don’t, and can’t, prevent the flu from infecting tens of millions and killing tens of thousands every year in the U.S. We can’t do it for this virus either, which, based on more recent random serological testing, is far more widespread and far less deadly than originally thought.

      Now that we have a better idea of who are the most vulnerable—elderly with one or more serious health problems—we can protect them. And we don’t have to shut down the entire country, destroy millions of jobs and impoverish tens of millions. All for a virus that is proving to be only slightly more deadly than a bad flu season.

      19 |
    • First of all New York is saying anybody that dies, dies of COVID 19 so their numbers are way off anyway. Second so okay I give you we are not testing everybody but then that makes our death rate even lower. Look at his many people out there aren’t even affected by Covid 19

      -1 |
    • Matthew Mayer

      Well written article explaining precisely what is wrong with the “it’s only the flu” crew. Unfortunately for you, it seems as though that’s who you’re going to attract. My advice would be, if someone is unwilling to look beyond the exaggeration (the communion wafers analogy) employed to demonstrate the absurd use of statistics in the video (they are being disingenuous – it’s a devastatingly simple idea to grasp), don’t waste too much time fruitlessly engaging every point. Your sanity matters. Peace.

      9 |
      • Mar Tam Matthew Mayer

        Agreed, it is bizarre. I tried to engage and looked through the comments as they arose because I am genuinely interested in judging the arguments, but it’s very apparent that this has become something of a culture war thing and it’s not worth engaging, as people are not responding in good faith. Oh well.

        6 |
      • Matthew Berger Matthew Mayer

        Whether it is or is not worse than the flu does not matter.  The discussion has always been when and how to reopen.  Dr. Erickson’s position is that shelter in place does nothing to save lives, and may in face compromise more people’s immune systems than some return to normalcy.  The only thing we’re discussing is when and how to open.  Data is growing that the virus is not as dangerous as previously imagined.  We also know who the populations are that should take additional precautions.  He does nothing more than making the case for reopening most businesses with looser safety guidelines.  The comparison between Sweden and Norway is much harder to refute than anyone’s estimation of fatality and infection rates.

        8 |
      • Shawn Fahy Matthew Berger

        My understanding is that sheltering in place is meant to give the health care system a better ability to cope.

        4 |
      • Joe Pulcinella Matthew Mayer

        The entire crux of Erickson’s argument is that guidelines imposed at the federal and state levels are based on months-old assessments which were made with very little data. He’s trying to make the case that those models are obsolete and should be replaced or at least tempered with actual data.

        6 |
      • SusieQ Joe Pulcinella

        Thank YOU!

        6 |
    • Kate Byrne

      Sorry you lost me when you said he is a physician but not an MD. As far as I recall from the English language, a physician IS an MD. The dictionary seems to confirm my memory.

      6 |
      • Mar Tam Kate Byrne

        He’s a DO, not an MD.

        10 |
      • Kate Byrne Mar Tam

        In my opinion, DOs are even better trained than MDs if you know their training. They do the same schooling as an MD and then on top of that do extra training in musculoskeletal, osteokinematics, etc etc and have way more skills in treating patients than MDs. This guy is also an ER physician, which requires even more training to be in the ER.

        18 |
      • Mar Tam Kate Byrne

        I have nothing against DOs. I was only addressing your apparent confusion in the initial comment.

        9 |
      • Kate Byrne Kate Byrne

        I live in Canada, where physicians are MDs. DOs in Canada are not physicians. But thank you for the clarification.

        7 |
      • A C Kay Mar Tam

        Doctors of Osteopathy study another year, as they approach healing in a tri-fold way:  Mind, Body, Spirit;; a more holistic approach. Allopathic doctors, MDs, treat people’s symptoms with drugs, radiation and surgery.

        4 |
      • David Bermejo A C Kay

        DOs in the US also treat patients with drugs, radiation and surgery. They are Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine > Doctors of Osteopathy. A slight difference. Just a clarification.

        3 |
      • SusieQ A C Kay

        Yes, they are actually study longer than MD.

        5 |
      • See Tree Kate Byrne

        He is a DO. Not an MD.

        Which is irrelevant because they are both physicians. It is a dumb point the author made to try and debunk Erickson.

        10 |
    • Erik Wagner

      I see you’re not following (or don’t understand) the developing story around seroprevalence (examples: studies from Santa Clara, Boston, Germany, Colorado, NY state).  These findings have dramatically changed our understanding of how many asymptomatic cases there are, and the true R0 of this virus.  To say that the picture hasn’t changed since January is categorically false.  Also, your stats calculations need some work regarding NYC population.  I don’t disagree that Erickson is oversimplifying and confusing different test result meanings, but I your dismissal of his overarching idea is inadequate.

      10 |
      • Lindsey Miranda Erik Wagner

        Agreed 100%. A lot of people are saying that 12% would change because people tested are more likely to have covid but we really don’t know that. People are scared to come get tested and even besides that we all know that Many of the cases show no symptoms at all. So with half the cases not even showing symptoms… the percentage could even be Higher for all we know.

        I think it all goes back to the fact that Dr. Ericksons overarching idea was that because there is so much unknown about this virus, people are scared. But it doesn’t appear to be statistically significant difference in death than the flu. Almost 17,000 have died in NY from this. over 40,000 a year typically die from Heart Disease in NY alone. Are we shutting down McDonalds and forcing people onto treadmills? No.

        5 |
    • Deanne Adamson

      None of this is relevant anymore because YouTube pulled the video.
      Hmmmm.

      -1 |
      • A C Kay Deanne Adamson

        EVERYthing is relevant since You Tube pulled the video! Are we a Nanny State that we need someone looking out for us? If that’s the case, why is porn so prevalent?  Nanny State can’t fix that one?  I, for one, do not need some “Entity” that thinks it knows better than I do what I want to read, listen to, enjoy or debate.  Nor do I want one.  How about you?

        6 |
      • Jeremy Pierce A C Kay

        Are you suggesting that YouTube is a state rather than a private enterprise that should be able to do what it wants with its website? Or are you advocating for a nanny state to tell YouTube that it can’t take down a video that it doesn’t want to host?

        2 |
      • I agree with that to a certain point. I think private companies should be able to do what they want with their private company… but what do we do when all of our platforms take down what they deem is against their “community guidelines”. When does it go to far? Would you be upset if your cell phone company stopped letting you make calls because you politically disagreed with them and you might say something they disagree with? Well… they are a private company, guess thats okay!

        At some point, when you are THE #1 platform for speech, you shouldn’t, in my opinion, decide who gets to speak. I think that is very dangerous… but… hopefully this just opens the door for new companies to compete with them. It may take time but I think it will happen. If not? Well then, I guess we will all become a miming puppet of whatever google or facebook wants us to say. No big deal unless you disagree with them.

        8 |
      • SusieQ Lindsey Miranda

        Exactly!  We still have choices… and I will fight for my right to choose.

        4 |
      • Does YouTube do what it wants, or does it give in to pressure from outside forces? Is it truly free, independent and private?

         

        5 |
    • A. Aron

      These doctors are right on. There are three types of fatality rates. Crude Fatality Rate, Case Fatality Rate , and Infection Fatality Rate. Crude fatality rate is the total number of deaths/ total number of that population – these numbers are currently actually well below .1%.  The infection fatality rate cannot be found right now but it is the total total # of deaths/total # of infected (we don’t know the total number of infected),we know that it is a much higher number than currently reported. The case fatality rate (CFR) is the number of reported deaths / number of reported cases . The CFR is what’s being widely reported in the media and is a dangerously misleading number – because it’s missing all the people who have not been tested, but has to include all cases. In many states people who had mild symptoms were not permitted tests. Even an asymptomatic case is a case that would have to go into these numbers to get a true CFR.
      These doctors are extrapolating from their actual numbers and public data. Their numbers are much more accurate than theoretical models. We needed the theoretical models in the beginning, now we have actual data. Why are people choosing to ignore the actual data? If you don’t believe what they are saying check the numbers.
      I live in Illinois so let’s look at that as an example. According to the publicly available data the population of Illinois is  12.67 million there are 45,883 reported cases and 1983 reported deaths. The crude fatality rate for Illinois is 0.02%, the case fatality rate (based on only reported cases) is 4.32% .  Since we don’t know the actual number of cases we cannot derive the IFR which is what other people are confusing with the CFR and what the models were trying to predict. Anyway you look at the data the IFR will not be anywhere close to the forecasts. These doctors are using their data and extrapolating to apply to populations which paints a more accurate picture of the true mortality rate.

      10 |
      • Tom Henderson A. Aron

        Using your definitions, the crude fatality rate in NYC is 0.2% and climbing.

        How are the doctors spot on when they claim it is less than that?

        6 |
      • A. Aron Tom Henderson

        In every case the original models have not been accurate. The death rate is much lower. 0.1 or 0.2 does not invalidate the argument.

        4 |
      • A. Aron Tom Henderson

        The population of New York City is 8.3M. There have been 12287 deaths =0.142%

        2 |
      • Joe Kambeitz Tom Henderson

        Deadlier for those with underlying conditions.. 0.005% for those w/o underlying.

        https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-daily-data-summary-deaths-04282020-1.pdf

        Those without underlying conditions made up 0.005% of the NYC deaths.
        1Underlying illnesses include Diabetes, Lung Disease, Cancer, Immunodeficiency, Heart Disease, Hypertension, Asthma, Kidney Disease, GI/Liver Disease, and Obesity

         

         

        5 |
      • Matthew Mayer A. Aron

        As has been established by this article and the comments, whilst the true fatality rate cannot be accurately determined yet, there was a ridiculous abuse of statistics in the video. You cannot take the sample of those tested and apply it to the population at large. The rest of their case then falls like a stack of cards. Look at Italy. Look at Spain. Look at the UK. Look at New York. Then look at New Zealand and Czech and California. This isn’t the flu.

        5 |
      • A. Aron Matthew Mayer

        He is extrapolating his actual data onto a larger population. This is more accurate than modeling with assumed factors and numbers that have not come to fruition.

        5 |
      • Matthew Mayer A. Aron

        He was extrapolating from a massively biased sample. It is in no way accurate.

        7 |
      • SusieQ Matthew Mayer

        Those docs were talking about his area – not speaking for all other states nor countries!

        3 |
      • Melodie Noyes A. Aron

        We don’t know how many people actually have or have had Covid; we don’t know how many people have actually died of Covid and not something else if/since many were not tested. Do we even know the accuracy of any of the tests that have been done? We really have no hard data. So we have to extrapolate based on assumptions. It’s the assumptions that make the differences in the models and drive the fear or lack thereof.

        2 |
    • Catotheold

      These two are not the only ones.  The author is going to have to refute Dr. Scott Atlas at a Stanford and Dr. David Katz.  Good luck with that as the evidence continues to build that the death rate is about the same as the flu and almost 0% for the healthy.

      11 |
      • Tom Henderson Catotheold

        Nonsense. A death rate of 0.1% is already proven mathematically impossible in NYC. More than 0.1% of the entire population of the city is already dead.

        6 |
      • See Tree Tom Henderson

        Unless those deaths were falsely attributed to being from covid, as Dr.Erickson stated docs were being pressured into doing. CMMS is openly reimbursing hospitals 20% more for covid deaths. The problem is what you call a covid death and AMA put out a 7 page release, itself, encouraging doctors to put that on the death certificate, even though they haven’t been confirmed with coronavirus.

        So don’t say it is mathematically impossible when human stupidity can more than make up for it.

        10 |
      • Jeremy Pierce See Tree

        It is mathematically impossible unless you can come up with an explanation for those deaths that doesn’t involve inflating other causes of deaths well past what they would normally be. Something has to be killing these people, and the conspiracy theories haven’t offered any reasonable explanation for that.

        3 |
      • See Tree Jeremy Pierce

        I literally just provided a non-conspiracy theory reason why the deaths may be over-inflated.

        5 |
    • Lisa Agee Williams

      Ari, so he is using a lower total positive cases number because not everyone has been tested. That means that one’s risk of death rate is actually lower than his estimation. Sooo. Lol

      3 |
      • You bet, Lisa. Can’t see why so many don’t get that. Maybe we’re sampling in the communion line.

        6 |
    • Doc Avak

      Erickson is, in fact, a physician, although not an MD. This opening statement tells you right away the author has his own agenda (works for Big Pharm) and has zero credibility with what’s happening in the trenches. Dr. Erickson is a DO which is Equivalent and no less then an MD, go look it up. Dr. Erickson’s 12% positive from 280,000 is accurate. The #s of % of death will continue to drop as more people get tested, there are many more who have been infected with Covid-19 but are asymptomatic and will never get tested. The Influenza virus is far more statistically accurate as a large majority of people are symptomatic. He is also right that wearing gloves doesn’t prevent you from getting or spreading the virus and in fact could enhance spreading. You go to Costco and touch items that could have Covid-19, then you touch the next item, touch your cart and spread it, then you touch your hair, face, clothes, etc….  His point also that why is Big Corp Business open with 100’s of people but small business’s are closed down. Makes no sense!

      7 |
      • See Tree Doc Avak

        The author absolutely has an axe to grind. Erickson is a DO, not an MD. I am an MD and I will tell you that they are exactly equivalent. If he is trying to state otherwise, he needs to come out and say it.

        Erickson is in fact in practice.

        Not that this matters when attempting to put basic biostats together, because they teach you that in medical school.

        Erickson was very much correct and the current positivity of 17% in the US out of 6 million tested can’t be waved away with a disease that has nonspecific symptoms.

        Afterall, the author isn’t a physician, now is he? How would he know who gets tested and who doesn’?

        6 |
      • SusieQ See Tree

        You are so correct!

        6 |
    • Marshall Pickett

      Your allegation that his method is flawed is flawed. You state his extrapolation of the positive test percentage to a population is incorrect because only people with symptoms are tested.  This seems to prove his point even more. We are beginning to understand that the number of positive cases is much higher, as much as 50 times higher, from the antibody tests.  Therefore, the death rate is even lower, which makes it statistically comparable to the flu. There are 989K cases in the US. out of 5.6M tested. So if you extrapolate that’s 17.7% testing positive or extrapolated 58.4M have been infected, which is probably much higher.  With 56K deaths that’s a death rate of .1% or much lower, which is comparable to flu.

      6 |
      • A C Kay Recon Ty

        My question exactly, Recon Ty.

        Oh, and BTW, I thought Denier would be pronounced “Den-i-YAIR” and have a french background.  Nope. It is “Dee-NIE-ER” and it is what it says. So a ‘Science Denier’ is one who denies the science behind a stance–like global warming, for instance.  How’s that for oddball!

        3 |
    • Ben Kleiman

      Mortality rate is death/ cases (past and present)
      Immunological studies are better at this, because even if you are no longer sick, they show you had the disease in the past.
      Immunological studies are like surveys, they try to randomly sample a population, and test who has had an infection in the past, and extrapolate it to the population as a whole.
      This is the standard used for decades to calculate the morality rate from the seasonal flu.

      Many recent immunological studies from Europe and The US have concluded that the numbers infected from Covid 19 are exponentially higher than previously believed, and they conclude that the mortality rate is exponentially lower than previously calculated. They recently did widespread testing in US prisons, and it confirmed this, a huge percentage of the prison population has already had this disease, but minimal hospitalizations, most were asymptomatic, very low mortality rate.

      Sweden did not shut down their economy or shelter in place, and Sweden left their schools open.
      What do their numbers show?
      Sweden had 2355 deaths from Covid 19, as opposed to the average of 1541 deaths from the seasonal flu yearly (CDC/WHO data).

      Canada announced yesterday that the province of Quebec is opening schools and daycares shortly based on this type of data coming in.

      The data is coming in shows the median age of those dying from this disease varies from country to country, but it’s around 80 years old. 98% of those who die from this disease have multiple medical conditions. Data varies, but about half of all deaths occur in nursing homes and long term care facilities.

      My main point is that the data being published seems to show a much lower mortality rate, and that’s good news.

      No one is accusing Sweden (or Quebec) of making a huge mistake on this, it seems worse than the flu, but not that much worse. Sweden didn’t shut down their economy or schools, and many countries that did lock downs have way worse numbers. Sweden protected and locked down those at risk, not their entire population.

      6 |
      • I agree. I read a report that many of the deaths in Sweden occurred in long term care facilities. Maybe we should get rid of those!

        4 |
    • Lauren Anderson

      Why are some people stridently defending old data and assumptions? This is a fluid situation that is still rapidly evolving. The notion that it’s far more deadly than a bad seasonal flu was based on early and very limited testing. The only people tested initially were those showing up at hospitals with severe symptoms, so naturally the case fatality rate (CFR) was extremely high. It was expected that it would drop as testing became more widespread and people with mild symptoms were taken into account. And that’s exactly what has happened, which is the normal trend for every pandemic in recent history.

      Recent random blood tests for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Santa Clara County (published April 17) and Los Angeles County (published April 20) show that the virus is much, much more widespread than previous testing of symptomatic patients has shown, which implies that the CFR is quite a bit lower. It has also shown that the vast majority of people who get it have relatively mild symptoms; in other words they have not needed to go to the hospital. In virtually every place in the U.S. except NYC, and in most countries around the world, we’re seeing that the CFR is pretty close to a (bad) seasonal flu; much higher for elderly people with one or more serious health conditions and much lower for younger, healthier people. Now that we’re beginning to understand that, we can protect the most vulnerable and let everyone else get back to work and school and stop the massive, destructive lockdowns that have left tens of millions without jobs and income and will result in a host of other devastating impacts to millions of people; far more than the direct impact of the Wuhan virus on the 56,000 who have died in the U.S. so far, almost all of whom are elderly with severe health problems.

      More data improves understanding of the scope of the problem and how best to deal with it. Locking yourself into old data, initial assumptions based on that old data, and early strategies to deal with the virus is a fool’s game. These doctors have simply pointed out that the reality on the ground almost everywhere is vastly different than was initially predicted, with the notable exception of New York City. Clearly there are other factors affecting the spread of the virus because it is much more prevalent in some cities than others. Let’s modify government policies and personal behavior to reflect the latest information and not waste our energy defending the continued use of self-defeating, counterproductive, and ultimately more dangerous policies like locking down the entire country. We know more now, and it’s time to open up the country everywhere except in a few places.

      12 |
      • See Tree Lauren Anderson

        6 million tests in the US.

        1 million positive. About 17% positive. So far.

        And this guy is trying to wave the “Sampling bias” nonsense wand at us for a disease that has entirely nonspecific symptoms.

        4 |
      • A. Aron See Tree

        He’s correct. This does not count for the asymptomatic or mild cases. I know people who were told they could not get a test because they were not sick enough. This seems to be fairly common. Now that there is antibody testing we should be able to find out more.  At least in my state testing was very selective. Yesterday was the first time the state has made an announcement that anyone with symptoms can get tested. So still, not anyone. My daughter’s friend got an antibody test as part of a new study and she was positive – completely asymptomatic.

        3 |
      • Could crowded public transportation and high density residences have anything to do with why New York City has such a high rate of infection?

        2 |
    • Mike Thompson

      Can someone please explain to me how I’m wrong here?

      How does taking samples of the HIGHEST POSSIBILITY of death and concluding the mortality rates as low… not infer the mortality rate for everyone else is EVEN LOWER? Thus supporting their conclusion that mortality rates are insanely low?

      7 |
      • Matthew Mayer Mike Thompson

        Hey Mike, hope I can help.

        I’m trying to get my head round your confusion

        Basically, Erickson says that, because X% of tested patients are positive, then we can reasonably say that the numbers will be the same for the non-tested. By doing this, you can say, “it’s not 10,000 who have had the disease, it’s 1,000,000! And look, the death rate remains the same. Therefore the mortality rate is very low.”

        The problem being that the number of assumed infections has been hugely inflated, as of course you can’t extrapolate to the general population conclusions based on those getting tested. Those being tested are far more likely to have the disease.

        So instead of dividing the no. of deaths by a smaller number, you get to make it a huge number and all of a sudden you’ve got a minuscule number of deaths per infected person. Which simply isn’t true.

        Hope that helps.

        We all want life to return to normal, and yes, initial estimates for the mortality rate were too high. But we know enough to understand that this is much more deadly than the flu, and caution should be exercised.

        If you’re still unsure, listen to the repeated talking points that you hear here:

        – death rates are being exaggerated by doctors for money! (There is no real evidence of this, and it’s just as likely many deaths, particularly those at home or in nursing homes, are being missed)

        – Bill Gates! (Because why not?)

        – Mandatory vaccinations! (Because life-saving interventions are now bad)

        – The economy! (I know, it’s tough, but lives)

        – pff, 0.5 – 1% is nothing (it’s not) and it’s only the old who die (well, infections can be passed on to the elderly. Also: it’s not)

        Peace.

         

        6 |
    • Rob Erlick

      The author uses lots of space speicifcally debunking the test positivity rate as a measure of the population (good argument), assumedly because the death rate is supposed to be higher.
      HOWEVER – then the author says this:
      “Let’s step away from the nonsense Erickson is pushing and go back to the real data. The latest serostudies and the most recent case and mortality data indicate the same thing we’ve seen, in broad strokes, since we first covered this topic in January. The fatality rate of COVID-19 is much higher than the seasonal flu and somewhat lower than SARS. If it runs rampant through the United States and infects most of the population, the death toll will be much higher than any seasonal flu in history.”

      This part – “fatality rate of COVID-19 is much higher than the seasonal flu and somewhat lower than SARS”

      WE DON’T KNOW THE FATALITY RATE.  By the author’s OWN EXPLANATION of how such a rate can be known (most especially the denominator) – until we know the % of the population which is positive…not the % of the population which has been tested.  WE DON’T KNOW THE DEATH RATE.  WE DON’T KNOW THE DENOMINATOR..
      The only way you can do this without testing the entire population is as the antibody testing went – random large samples that can assume to be a representation of the entire population.
      That statement alone – puts the author of this article in the same classification he’s put the doctors – shabby statistical references to make a point about the death rate.

      OH YEAH – and why is this information “dangewrous”?  This was never explained and doesn’t fit for a scientific rebuttal.  It makes the article look like another media moment of shaming someone.  “Dangerous” is used far too often and NEVER explained.

      10 |
    • Caroline Chamblin

      NYC is  a unique situation and the rest of the country should not use NYC as the example to define reality.

      https://www.newgeography.com/content/006608-exposure-density-and-pandemic

      5 |
    • Matthew Berger

      This is very poorly written and only attempts to refute a single data point in an hour long video.  Let’s start with what we’re really discussing here.  The plan has always been to shelter in place so we do not overwhelm the medical community.  The discussion has never been about staying at home until it is 100% safe.

      So the discussion is really about when and how to reopen.  We now have data showing that there are people who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms.  We also have reports that a large number of the population might have already had the virus due to antibody testing (again not perfect, but confirms asymptomatic/mild cases exist).  We will NEVER test everyone.  I thought his comparison between Sweden and Norway was an excellent comparison on strategy despite not having 100% testing numbers.

      When it comes to the mortality rate what we can glean from his discussion is the topic of comorbidities.  Meaning that people don’t just die from COVID, they die from pneumonia most likely because they have other risk factors that led to a compromised immune system or compromised respiratory system.  The average age of death in Italy was 79.5 years old at last watch.  Similarly, the Flu knocks out the sickest among us.  We are not debating whether or not to encourage our elderly to stay home, we are debating whether or not the widespread shutdown of the country is justified as a strategy.

      To ignore the tertiary effects of this disease and the economic damage this strategy has and will create is a flaw in analysis.  There is also an inherently flawed logic in saying a supermarket is safe but a car dealership is not.  The fact is that any business we close will require untold sums of money to keep from going bankrupt.  His analysis of facts related to depressed immune systems and a healthcare system that is shutdown are spot on.  If we do not start subjecting the healthy portions of our population to this virus we will only be building a worse fall flu season.

      While there are some statistical errors that can be nitpicked, do not allow that to confuse the overarching message that stay at home orders are not a long term solution!

      10 |
      • See Tree Matthew Berger

        Oh, we haven’t tested everyone and never will. But have so far done pretty well.

        6 million tested. 1 million positive. That is about 15-16% positive so far. *So far*.

        This guy is literally trying to say that those numbers are wrong, the docs are wrong because of sampling bias for a disease with nonspecific symptoms.  It is stupifying ridiculous.

        -3 |
      • A. Aron See Tree

        It doesn’t matter that symptoms are not specific – you had to be sick enough to even get the test – so only the worst cases were tested. Then there were people like me who got sick, had an underlying condition but didn’t want to risk getting infected if it wasn’t that – so I stayed home and didn’t get tested. The same fear caused by the media throwing out huge mortality rates scared many people away.

        5 |
      • More tertiary effects–domestic abuse, suicide, loss of jobs, income, savings, and homes, loss of educational opportunities–especially for those without technological resources or with special needs. Add to that the lack of revenue to fund infrastructure and social welfare programs. (I know you mentioned economic damage, but I wanted to spell it out a little bit more.) Covid and the measures we’re taking to combat it do not exist in a closed system. Everything affects everything else.

        4 |
    • Gordon

      So basically what you’re arguing is, the more people we test, the lower the rate of infection and death rate will be… thus proving their point that the lockdown is pointless.

      Or

      The more we test, the higher we find the infection rate to be, thus proving their point of mass infection, low mortality…

      10 |
      • See Tree Gordon

        For all this guy’s claim to being an epidemiologist, he doesn’t seem to know what he is talking about.

         

        We have tested 6 million in the US and 1 million have been tested positive. You can’t chalk a 1/6th prevalence of a sample size THAT large with being sampling bias for a disease with entirely non specific symptoms.

        -2 |
    • Pavel Minaev

      Looking at the comments since yesterday, and… wow. I’m surprised nobody chimed in to tell us how it’s all a Monsanto conspiracy just yet.

      10 |
    • Blaine McAvoy

      Their assumptions are incorrect, but the conclusions are accurate. New York and New Jersey are the two hardest hit states. Collectively, those two states account for 41 percent of the U.S. cases and 51 percent of deaths from Covid-19. New York State recently completed a serology study indicating that upwards of 14 percent of the people in that state have contracted the virus (See April 27 Article: New York, California Serology Studies Give Early Estimates of COVID-19 Prevalence”). As of 11 pm on 27 April, NY had 22,668 deaths from 291,996 cases or a case death rate of 2.74 percent. However, 14 percent of NY’s population would, according to the serology study results, test positive for the virus. That equates to 2,804,340 confirmed cases. The 22,668 confirmed deaths would then represent a case death rate of 0.81 percent. The data shows there is very little mortality risk for the healthy people in the age groups that predominantly comprise the work force. Download the Covid-19 Daily Data Summary from the New York City Health Department. Of NYC’s 11,820 deaths through 27 April, information about whether those who died had serious comorbidities is known in 72.4 percent of deaths. For the remainder, that info is unknown. Of the group wherein the information of underlying and preexisting health conditions is known, a whopping 99.2 percent died with comorbidities. Additionally, 73.5 percent of all those who died in NYC were 65 or older. The workforce is generally younger and healthier. The sad, little disclosed story of this pandemic is that many of the fatalities are in nursing homes. New Jersey reports that almost half their deaths are in long-term care facilities. Again, not the workforce. One more thing and I’ll wrap it up. Sweden’s malls, restaurants, and schools have remained open. They did not shut down. Sweden reports more than half of their deaths are in nursing homes (source: Source: NPR Article of 26 April 2020 titled “Stockholm Expected To Reach Herd Immunity In May, Swedish Ambassador Says”). For analysis sake, let’s make Sweden the 51st state. Sorting the case rates (confirmed cases per million population) from highest to lowest, Sweden’s cases would rank them number 17 among U.S. states. New York’s case rate is 7.5 times higher than Sweden’s; New Jersey’s is 6.3 times higher; Connecticut’s is 4.2 times higher, and Massachusetts’ 1.85 times higher. All had among the most draconian mitigation orders in the U.S.

      10 |
    • Mike Makkar

      Good analysis! But, technically it is .13% of the entire population of New York has been wiped out! After a month, it will be reach 0.2% this year! It will most likely cap at 0.35% over next 2 years, when 70% of New York is infected

      5 |
    • Joe Gilsoul

      I’m not following. What is the significance of his using the wrong positivity rate? Does he use it to say if the epidemiologists were right then the number of deaths would be much higher than the are, so the epidemiologists are dead wrong because the actual deaths are much lower? Please do a “for dummies” version. Thanks

      7 |
    • John Dickson

      Disagree with their video all you want. I don’t care. But censorship is wrong. Period. They have one point of view. You have another. Shouldn’t we in a free society be able to read/listen to both opinions and come to our own conclusion? But apparently not. The YouTube apparatchiks will decide for us.

      5 |
    • David Nelson

      Let me see if I understand you. You think Erickson is a dunce for extrapolating test data to characterize all of the population, because the sampling is biased towards sick people OK. Yet you refute him by extrapolating data from New York City. Do you think there may be factors that make NYC somewhat of an outlier?

      6 |
    • DudleyF

      This response is very misleading. While Dr Erickson admittedly extrapolates data from the test positives to create a whole state look his numbers do seem to match what other studies are showing. USC and Stanford did a study each and both came out with rates of a range of 30 to 85 times higher rate of infection than was initially believed making the death rate fall dramatically. Of course these studies were panned and were disappeared as quickly as the Dr Erickson press conference from YouTube. In Boston and Chelsea Mass three different small scale studies were done but each coming out with a percentage of around 1/3 to 1/2 of all tested had the virus bringing into question how widespread it is. New York has studies showing somewhere between 14% and 25% have the anti-bodies showing widespread infection at some point and lowering the death rate dramatically. There is also admitted reporting concerns that a number of deaths reported are people with Covid-19 not caused by Covid-19 a big difference. A report done in New York of 7000 of the deaths showed a whopping 99% of those that had died were suffering from some form of terminal illness besides Covid-19. A study done in England concluded that 5% of the deaths were by Covid-19 alone, while 95% were caused by another terminal illness in conjunction with Covid-19. That should at least put some question of the lethality of this virus. It is interesting that anything that varies from the accepted narrative gets savaged including Dr Erickson, the USC and Stanford study and others are just ignored.

      11 |
      • A. Aron DudleyF

        It’s very odd. People don’t want to look at the actual data and ask questions. Are we afraid that we have done all this for nothing? I think our initial response was right but as we have gathered more information this turns out not to be what the academic modelers predicted. It’s a cause for relief and we need to adapt our policies to a level that is inline with the actual data.  There are numerous studies, even non-serologic, that show the number of asymptomatic infected could be 50% – Iceland. The studies from every country (that I have read) skew towards age and co-morbidities. It’s not that this isn’t serious, but shouldn’t people at least look at the data and ask questions? Also why do the reporters in the video, from the beginning, seem to be on the attack? Why is everyone focused on proving the new data wrong when any way you consider the lethality the original models were wrong. it seems like group think, or the lemming syndrome. Stay at home does not seem to be working in Illinois. I am complying with it but I see many who are not.
        In an effort to be transparent I invented “the lemming syndrome.”

        13 |
      • Melodie Noyes A. Aron

        “It’s not that this isn’t serious, but shouldn’t people at least look at the data and ask questions?” I totally agree, and yet I’m told, “Trust the experts; trust Dr. Fauci and Governor Inslee.” No! Look at the data! Ask questions! Think about other possible explanations for numbers and trends. Look for confounding variables! Look at the scales on the charts! Compare! Probe! Seek opposing views and listen to them critically!

        2 |
      • Clarke Van Meter DudleyF

        I had a reaction that was in the ballpark of a Gell-Mann shock:  I listened to the whole thing and came away thinking that they were making one important claim and backing it with the relationship between their data and the serology studies.  The claim that’s important is that there’s no statistical significance to the variance in deaths across mitigation regimes.  That is a very specific claim I have seen nobody attempt to argue.  Its a formula.  There’s a webpage to plug in your numbers.  Let’s see some numbers there, please, or this is just psycho drama.  They discuss their large sample size and illness trends and state they believe the data is stable enough to multiply by the range of serological estimates to come up with a decent guess at infection fatality rate.  When I saw people freaking out that they were committing a logic and category error I was astounded.

        8 |
    • Philip J. Sherman

      Follow the Money is a common saying, right?

      Well…”Ari Allyn-Feuer is an Artificial Intelligence engineer at a major pharmaceutical company.”

      Does this author really know better than two doctors that have 7 clinics and have studied this subject for more than 20 years?

      By the way, I’m not attached to anyone in this article, in any way.

      4 |
      • Yall seem to be missing that this isn’t “Ari’s argument” — multiple major professional organizations of actual experts have publicly denounced the video and Doctors. It’s linked in the main article here.

        9 |
      • Clarke Van Meter shtfhappens

        I’ve read their denouncement.  Its exactly that.  I’m tired of argumentation by authority. I listened to the whole thing 48 hours before they pulled it and it doesn’t argue anything they say it argues.  This whole thing is psycho-drama.

        6 |
      • See Tree shtfhappens

        What is your point?
        Two organizations made a statement of opinion.
        We have another, the AMA, that made a release encouraging doctors to put covid down as the cause of death without any positive test to confirm that.
        Either Erickson’s numbers are good or they’re not. You can’t use an appeal to authority fallacy to prove/disprove a point, so stop it already.

        -2 |
    • Milo Milosevic

      Is this article for real?  Is this supposed to “debunk” statistics?

      From above: “Erickson confuses test positivity rates (i.e., the percentage of positive PCR tests among a group of people who were actually able to get tested for COVID-19) with community attack rates (i.e., the percentage of people in a whole population who have had COVID-19).”

      Test positivity rate is how science determines the fatality of a disease by comparing those who died with a positive virus test with those who carry the virus.

      Does your supposedly scientific “Community Attack Rate” even require a positive blood test for Covid-19?  Lemme guess.  It’s based on symptoms.  Conveniently, these symptoms correspond with influenza A or B, the largest infectious disease killer in 1st world nations.  Does your Community Attack Rate” exclude comorbidities like influenza by testing for these upon death, even when victim has Covid symptoms?  Lemme guess, too busy for that.  Well that my friend isn’t science.  It’s not statistics based on a population who at any given time carries several potentially lethal infectious diseases with Covid-19 like symptoms.

      Erickson extrapolates the percentage tested positive  for Covid-19 with those who have died of Covid-19 and then extrapolates this on to CA’s total population.  There is nothing unscientific about this, unless the Covid-19 test is not reliable?  We know that everyone will never be tested.  We could also look at different patient groups to narrow down those most susceptible based on social habits, lifestyles, and comorbidities.  This is science.  Of course, medical personnel are NOT being required to test for influenza A or B, nor document comorbidities.

      2 |
      • See Tree Milo Milosevic

        THIS. Him bringing up community attack rate is as relevant as stating that Dr.Erickson isn’t an MD; he is a DO, which is literally equivalent to an MD.

        We have tested 6 million people in the US and 1 million have tested positive. That is about 15-20% of the population for a disease with non-specific symptoms.

        1 |
      • JAMI See Tree

        He is a doctor of Osteopathy and can practice just as an MD

         

        3 |
    • Delores Kelly

      To remove this was not right .

      What these doctors said made all the sense in the world .

      The only reason is was shut down was because like all media  being in the pockets of  billionaires and governments  The U N and the Who  that has towed in billions of dollars through this and  where do it go .

      Our government is forking out all kinds of our tax money for supplies and such . Whem thee Who should be doing this  with all the funds that has occurred..

      These groups just  want control of what we need to know on their terms .

      We are not a communist country Canada or the

      U S A  and we should not be treated as such .

      We have our own mines to decide what to believe or not .and right now we dont have trust or fate in any bullshit media puts.out there .

      This is a crock these guys backed everything up and were genuine more than our leaders if you can call them that especially Trudeau ..

      So i think if you Tube is an openly public forum   that whatever anyone has to say  is out decision to watch  it  a d use our own God given mine .

      To take this down to shut them up  is proof they were right and you as a media You Tube   gave into them with the bribery given to you all .

      Totally shameful and disgusting  .

       

      -1 |
      • Mary Delores Kelly

        Well said! I totally agree. I am sick of the press attacking someone personally when they say something that doesn’t fit their narrative.

        6 |
      • Tom Henderson Delores Kelly

        They said this has the same mortality rate as the flu. Nobody capable of thought should accept that sort of nonsense. It’s deadlier than any flu season since 1967, and that’s with the social distancing measures in place.

        6 |
    • Marilyn

      Why do you say YouTube took their video down?  It’s still up.

      5 |
      • Mary Marilyn

        So many people complained and they had to bring it back. It’s a free country and people have the right to their opinion. The press just wants to silence anyone who says something that doesn’t fit their narrative.

        5 |
      • JAMI Mary

        It’s down again

        5 |
    • Deanne Adamson

      The video can be found at MSN.com: http://a.msn.com/09/en-us/BB133JTK?ocid=scu2

      7 |
      • JAMI Deanne Adamson

        That has been removed as well – I downloaded a copy of the video.

        Sad day in America when we have to quickly make a copy of truth before the tyrannical media removes it.

        -1 |
    • Caleb Morrow

      If you look at the covid death rates at their base value your looking at wrong also. As so many deaths are being mislabelled as covid-19 deaths when covid-19 had nothing to do with the persons death. ARI ALLYN-FEUER that wrote this isn’t a virologist or any of the qualifications he used to debunk these experts.

      8 |
    • Charmaine Glenn Albury

      The very act of trying to ban this video  speaks volumes! Many other garbage filled videos aren’t removed. Why remove this one? Whomever banned it( or tried to ban it) gave it credibility by doing so.
      BTW- I know families that have had more colds, sore throats, & coughs during the past 2 months than they experience in a year.
      Also, I know of families / groups that have been locked down together , 1-2 of them contract covid19, and none of the others become infected.
      Yes, it is a scary virus, and precautionary methods should be taken by individuals: but Dictated & punishable by law?

      8 |
      • Mary Charmaine Glenn Albury

        That’s right. The press will shut down anything that doesn’t fit their narrative. Shutting it down makes it look like people are scared that they speak the truth

        5 |
    • Thomas Jennings

      One thing that people should be upset about is not whose math is right, but one side of discussion was removed from youTube. I thought this is freedom of speech country. When some YouTube employee setting now at home can remove anything from YouTube because he or she do not like it we all should be upset. This sounds like what is going on in China. YouTube actually said on CNN that they would remove a video that said vitamin C will stop the coronavirus. How do they know if does not work. People need to use common sense. We keep trying to protect stupid people.

      4 |
    • Gina Jecminek

      What does this mean? “Erickson is, in fact, a physician, although not an MD.” The only other group that are physicians but not an MD are DO’s? For your information DOs have the same training as MDs with the exception of OMT (look it up) and once done with medical school are trained in the same residency’s as their MD counterparts. You just insulted a large group of physicians. If he is an MD or DO makes no difference when it comes to practicing medicine. They go through the same post graduate training and state licensing.

      2 |
    • Julia Leslie

      I die a little bit every time I read someone say that PCR is a test.

      4 |
    • Faith Koschmann

      A longer article that looks closely at these doctors’ claims is also worth reading is at https://thelogicofscience.com/2020/04/29/shoddy-statistics-and-false-claims-dr-erickson-dangerously-misled-the-public-on-coronavirus/

      5 |
    • GirPat

      Don’t go against the “official narrative”. Thanks for letting us hear an opposing viewpoint, YouTube! (sarcasm)

      4 |
    • Trojan House

      Well then Dr. David Katz is an epidemiologist and he said the exact same thing.  Look him up.

      3 |
    • nikola zivadinovic

      So if USA tested 1 mil. people and 1 mil. were infected, these to docs would say that hole of USA has covid19.

      5 |
      • A C Kay nikola zivadinovic

        That could be a possibility. It’s a pervasive virus.  And with the majority of people sheltering in place, and trying to sterilize everything, they have weakened their immune system, so may contract it.  Plus, there are folks that have great immune systems that have had very mild symptoms.   There are so many variables.  Maybe a person never had symptoms, but has the virus residing in their nose.  They are inadvertently carrying the virus to others.  Many, many scenarios.  But bottom line, we must reopen every business we can and get people back to work, or MaDAM Pelosi will be handing out all that money that doesn’t belong to her and send the already skyrocketing national debt into outer space!

        8 |
      • nikola zivadinovic A C Kay

        Thats impossible, no virus  affects 100% of population. Thats wy everybody talks about herd immunity which protects the rest of the population when you reach 60-70 % of infected. If you have 100% positive test rate it means you just dont test enough. But first og all the sample these doctors use is not representative for the hole population they talk about, thus there conclusions are wrong.

        6 |
    • Jeff Reuteler

      Ari Allyn-Feur is not a Doctor and has no medical degree.  What these two Doctors present is very much correct. Any basic knowledge os biology and physiology is correct.  The article is total nonsense.

      3 |
    • David Bermejo

      Please be aware the DO and MD are equivalent physician degrees. It does not matter that Dr. Erickson is a DO or MD. It is irrelevant and unnecessary to this rebuttal. Otherwise, great article!

      2 |
    • See Tree

      I will point out, regarding the video take-downs:

      These videos were taken down because of “spreading misinformation”. ie- they go against what public health experts have been stating.

      Stifling and sequesting frontline physicians is EXACTLY how this disease became a pandemic in the first place.

      6 |
    • Andy Smith

      In Belgium, > 0.06% of the population has died from C19. So obviously the mortality rate has to be at least that high. In NYC, the figure is 0.15% (not 0.2%–yet–as the article states). Moreover, if you take the antibody data from NYC at face value, the mortality rate is 0.6%. Same with Long Island and Rockland/Westchester. Some currently positive people would not yet have developed antibodies, which could raise the estimate of infected people, but on the other hand, studies of excess deaths–comparing all deaths this year with an equivalent time period last year–suggest that deaths are undercounted. The study suggested the number of deaths in NYC should be increased by about 16%, while those in L.I. by a whopping 47%. In addition, since about 75% of the confirmed cases in NYC are active, any estimate of mortality rate by deaths/cases underestimates the rate, since many deaths are yet to come from those active cases.

      5 |
    • Brad Cook

      I stopped reading as soon as you went down the he’s not even an MD path as a way to try and discredit what he is saying. DOs are every bit as trained as MDs. And I don’t notice anybody saying Fauci’s opinions aren’t valid because he’s not a practing physician..

      7 |
    • Tom Henderson

      Look, as of today, COVID-19 has killed more people than any flu season since 1967.

      Anyone who thinks it has the same mortality rate as the flu is simply not thinking.

      7 |
    • Bien Vu

      I looked at the data and I found Dr. Erickson made very good points on fatality rates which is small, less than 1%. I will show here the data from California and New York states. Since I cannot access his briefing anymore, I use current data per the Worldometer.com generated by the Johns Hopkins for 4/29/2020. 1) California: 1,939 deaths, 48,565 positive, 603,139 tested. If I use these, the fatality rate is 4%. However, if the whole state population is tested, the fatality rate will be much smaller. I apply the results from a study conducted on the whole population of Santa Clara county (WSJ 4/17/20 by Andrew Bogan) and extrapolate to the whole CA population, the number of positive cases would be 50 to 85 times more than 603k above. Therefore the fatality rate would be 0.05% to 0.08%. 2)New York: 23,474 deaths, 306,158 positives, 872,481 tested. These data reveals fatality rate of 7.7%. However Per Notes by Gov Cuomo on 4/23/20 (see Worldometer.com, 4/23/20 Notes), the tests conducted on random 3000 people found 13.9 % positive cases. Extrapolate that 13.9% to the whole NY state population, the positive cases would be about 2.7 millions, then the fatality rate would reduce to 0.8%. These fatality rates for CA, 0.05% to 0.08%, and NY, 0.8% are comparable to that of the annual flu. So i think Dr Erickson has good points and I agree with him. On the other hand, I also looked at the case of Sweden and Norway and found that the data do not support Dr Erickson’s narrative. As of 4/29/20, the deaths per one million people are 244 and 38 respectively. So his conclusion that Lock-Out in Norway has minimal impact is not convincing to me.

       

      3 |
    • JAMI

      Dr. Erickson’s presentation is NOT dangerously wrong…There is a lot of good, solid information presented by two highly trained medically trained experts.  These two men are not 3rd graders who got their information from comic books.   Their concern about the numbers not warranting the continued shut down, especially in areas with small populations and low numbers are absolutely correct.  Even in the bigger cities, it seems perfectly OK to keep open the big box stores such as Walmart, Target, Lowes, Home Depot, Costco, BJs and the like, but the government seems to think that smaller mom and pop store owners are too stupid to maintain social distancing.  Every day there is new and different information posted on this virus, and the CDC requirement for coding covid sent out to physicians is misleading the data.  For example, if someone with terminal, endstage cancer comes to hospice for end of life care, and tests positive for covid, even if they don’t have covid symptoms, and dies (from their cancer) they are still coded as a covid death.

      If you want to talk about misleading and inaccurate data, Fauci, a friend of Bill Gates who is touting a mandated-certification of vaccination for this for everyone in the entire planet, was so far off in his fear-mongering predictions it would be laughable if the effects were not so devastating to the rest of the United States with job losses, business closures, threats to our food supply and the inability to get needed non-emergent medical care.   Furthermore, they were spot-on with the increase in suicides, depression, anger.

      Our fundamental freedoms have been ripped away – a man and his daughter were tossing a ball in a park and were arrested, people sitting in their cars in a church parking lot were given $500 tickets, and worse – the governor in Michigan came out and limited the number of people in a car, even if they are from the same family!  this is tyranny!

      Speaking of Gates, he and his ilk have been pushing ID 2020 to give everyone in the world a digital identity…..I don’t want a dang digital identity!   Furthermore, Microsoft (Gates) has been obtaining a number of concerning patents.  The one issued in March of this year is for societal tracking using cryptocurrency via blockchain.

      Additionally, more and more information has shown that this virus did indeed come from the Wuhan virology lab and it was modified….what has yet to be proven is whether this was an intentional leak, or due to someone’s carelessness.  Either way, China did indeed cover and the doctor who first exposed is dead…more than likely at the hands of the CCP.

      Japan, a small isolated island, very densely populated in places, only went into a two-week lockdown.  Their percentages per population are much less.  Of course, we have the liberal cities of NY and LA, with high homeless populations – allowing defecation in the streets is detrimental to health.

      It angers me that YouTube, FB, and the like have seen fit to demonize these physicians who presented their own data and made reasonable extrapolations for their population.   Media mongers are so fearful of the truth that they took their videos down – but not before many people made copies.  It is a sad day in America when you see obvious lies, and worse being allowed to stay.

      WO 2020 060606 –  https://patentscope2.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2020060606&tab=PCTBIBLIO

       

       

      4 |
    • Pat Lilja

      Two points:

      1: For everyone here (and on YouTube) claiming we should listen to them because they are doctors…medical school does not teach math. It does not teach statistical analysis. It does not teach good research methodology. Medical schools typically require, at most, two semesters of math (generally any kind of math…no statistics requirement), and most only require one semester of math for admission. Doctors use basic math all the time, but do not use statistical math or statistical concepts during their work, except in very specific specialties or in research programs. And those that do are often MD/PhD’s with extensive statistics and research experience.  Doctors without a background in epidemiology or research, or some kind of outside statistics and math experience are little more prepared than any relatively smart person to understand statistics and may actually be more prone to overestimating their own abilities both to others and to themselves.

      2. Some of these posts seem very sock-puppety (at least to me).  Very weird for this site.

      7 |
      • JAMI Pat Lilja

        Why is it just because you do not agree with these doctors that you insult their intelligence and make a snide remarks about their lack of math skills? You really have no idea what courses they have taken in undergrad and graduate school or in their fellowships.   You don’t get to their career level by being dumb.   Quit making assumptions.

        3 |
      • Pat Lilja JAMI

        Gosh. I didn’t insult anyone’s math skills or intelligence. And I was talking about doctors on all sides and in all situations where math and statistics come up. But, your second point is correct…We really have no idea what courses they have taken in undergrad. That’s my point as well. Attending medical school says very little to nothing about a person’s experience or understanding of statistics and math. They should not be trusted to have an understanding of statistics beyond that of any other smart person with a basic understanding of math. We do know a bit more about their graduate school work though, as all MD’s and OD’s went to medical school, so we know that math and stats was not a concentration there. A few do other graduate work (MD/PhD’s are a prime example), but the very large majority do not.

        7 |
      • Melodie Noyes Pat Lilja

        I was required to take statistics in order to get into nursing school. Are you sure doctors are not required to take it?

        4 |
      • Not all physician programs require statistics. Some require embryology, but statistics would be more useful.

        7 |
      • Pat Lilja Melodie Noyes

        Yep. Only a third even require specific math classes. Of those few that do, the majority do not require statistics. I put a link below to a list of the medical schools that actually do require math with the ones that require a semester of stats highlighted. There are only 20 medical schools that require basic stats out of 190 (MD+D.O.) medical schools in the U.S. And, as you probably know from your stats course, while it was likely a useful introduction and a great tool for understanding how to think in a less biased way (hopefully you had a good teacher)…it likely did not contain more than a few days of how to understand study results, power functions, matrices, or meta analysis.
        https://hpa.princeton.edu/sites/hpa/files/2017hpa-mathrequirements.pdf

        7 |
      • Pat Lilja Melodie Noyes

        Yep.  Only a third even require undergrad math courses. Of those that do, the majority of them do not require statistics.  Of the 190 MD and O.D. programs in the U.S., only 20 have statistics requirements. I put a link below to a list of the medical schools with math requirements with the ones requiring stats highlighted.

        As you probably know from your own stats class too, while it was likely a good introduction and helped teach better ways of thinking about things in less biased ways (at least when taught by good instructors), it likely did not spend too much time on critically analyzing study design and results, power functions, matrices, or meta analysis.

        hpa.princeton.edu/sites/hpa/files/2017hpa-mathrequirements.pdf

        6 |
    • Jill James

      Ari, in your post above, you said the following, “The tested population is much more likely to have COVID-19 than the larger community.” This is false for the following reasons:

      (a) Initial PCR testing targeted ONLY symptomatic cases. Patients that exhibit symptoms are generally believed to have weaker immune systems (vis-a-vis a particular pathogen) than asymptomatic cases. This PCR testing in NO WAY negates the possibility that most of the infected are actually ‘asymptomatic’;

      (b) Antibody-based COVID-19 infection research ongoing at Stanford and in Europe supports Dr. Erickson’s findings. This antibody research is showing that about 3-4% of the population (California, Germany, Italy) has been infected and cleared the virus.

      These facts support Dr. Erickson’s findings. Herd immunity is the only thing that ensured the survival of humanity over hundreds of thousands of years, despite the fact we share the planet with trillions of pathogens. COVID-19 will be no different. A vaccine will be too late and possibly won’t work on a mutating organism. An endless lockdown will destroy all that is important in life and make it meaningless.

      2 |
    • JAMI

      Appreciate that Mark Levin has weighed in on the tyrannical measures by YouTube.  They let myriads of lies, falsehoods and sordid garbage proliferate but take down a rational presentation by two physicians who have concerns, not only with covid, but the impact the closures are having on the overall health of the populace.

      4 |
    • Italianogaspasser

      Wrong!? Somebody on here said “there’s not a lot of good common sense in his video”? Says the woman with a bandanna wrapped around her face in her profile picture. Wow! Anyway,  He’s 100% right!  If you’re a science major,  or have a PhD, or MD. and you want to have a discussion. I will have one. People,  this is the easiest science in the world. It’s been around for,  dear I say, the beginning of time!  I didn’t think we were right how we handled this from the onset. For the record, I didn’t believe the models they  were predicting.  2 million deaths in the United States. I had no hard science. Nobody did.  Thanks to China. That’s a whole bother story.  During this time, We learned a lot about how it affects old people.  how it affects people with co-morbidities. Particularly, obesity. So, at first nobody knew. However we do now. We have data. Clinically significant data. Even using the numbers the governments of these countries gave us. We know that crippling the economy did not pan out. Look this isn’t political. for the record I am a capitalist. However, science is not political. Unfortunately,  to the detriment of society, it has become political. The numbers however don’t lie.  they never have.  and they never will. Are these studies 100% accurate? No. But as someone who reads studies every day, I could tell you no study is 100% perfect. I love these guys for telling the truth.  They were 100% on the money. Based on the data. The world health organization crucified Sweden at the beginning on how they handled the Covid19 crisis. Now the world health organization is backtracking.  saying that they could use Sweden’s model in the future.  You don’t put people in Quarantine that are healthy. That’s absolutely ridiculous. And if you understand science, even if you don’t like these guys, you know it’s true. If you don’t then you didn’t study very hard.

      7 |
    • Brian Trubee

      A few points- the sampling in California, in Santa Clara, was not of people showing symptoms or with a high index of suspicion of having contracted Covid , but of people solicited on Facebook to participate. I’m about how you could infer that participants are not representative to random sampling.
      Also, I believe that the author mentioned the fact that quarantining the healthy has actually been tried in the past, and then mentioned the plague. How did that work out? I could go on, the author gratuitously uses ad hominems about Dr. Erikson’s credentials and intelligence, these are not germane to the discussion. The main point of Erikson’s presentation is that it is time to start to use a more adaptive approach to this virus as we gather more data. The object was/is to flatten the curve so as to not overwhelm the health care system. The dire predictions have not materialized, considering all other  negative societal impacts, we need to start returning , cautiously, to normal.

       

      6 |
    • SusieQ

      I agree with Dr. Erickson completely.  Ph.D. is a book theory doctors – Ari can’t even diagnose or treat a single patient, yet, telling Doctors on real life dealing with this reality is wrong?   Computer models were totally wrong… well, because it is computer and math…. machine can’t predict human behaviors.

      I am an R. N. and he makes a lot of common sense to me.  I think this is what we are missing in college education.

      5 |
      • Scott Robinson SusieQ

        Susie, Harvard docs are much better after they’ve been in actual practice for 20 yrs like the Bakersfield duo. Newly minted ones have to keep their black books with them (iPhones nowadays). What they look up has limited practical applicability.

        5 |
    • Patrick Hayes

      A C Kay relays what is most frustrating to those of us who have championed this doctor. Immediately the media, and now the “specialists” descended on these doctors like vultures! I see consistent attacks on the minutiae of the briefing and a complete display of ignorance of the broader strokes of calm rationale, integrity and candor that these doctors were attempting to paint. “…Home Depot and Sam’s Club are open but my local restaurant that seats 15 people is closed “due to reasons of health and safety..” There’s been no consistency, common sense or sangfroid, rational thought put into most of our government and health authority’s actions.  And most of the public chooses to ride along in content misery on the pandemonium of the media parade. Every industry is suffering and people are losing jobs right now; save two; Big Medicine and the media.

      2 |
    • Trojan House

      Dr. Knut Wittkowski headed the Department Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Research Design at Rockefeller University in New York for 20 years.  He is basically saying the same thing as doctors Erickson and Katz.  In fact, he says the lockdowns in North America and Europe were, for the most part, too late in controlling the spread of the disease, therefore, they are not effective.  As well, any lockdowns that took place in time are only going to promote a second wave of the virus.  He uses data that is up to date.

      https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.28.20036715v4?versioned=true

      It’s time our so-called leaders start getting second opinions from experts other than those from the WHO.

      1 |
    • Sam Santana

      Except he admits that ’employers would send people who had shown signs of fever, dry coughing etc. during screening and would be tested before being cleared to get back to work’ so why not test the rest of the workers? probably because they didn’t show any signs which entirely contradicts what you are saying.

      5 |
    • Dan Gillette Sam Santana

      The testing was not “limited” to patients showing signs as the author claims. If you’re pointing out that the people who sought the test were more likely to have it, I cannot argue that. But anybody who showed up got tested, which is different than where I’m from where screening prevents many from being tested – and different from what the author claims.

      -3 |
    • Scott Robinson Matt Bosco

      No need for invective, I know the contention is tedious and doesn’t move the ball at all. However, Matt, your explanations have been quite clear and reasonable. Bottom line is what Ericksen said: lots of infection, few deaths per infected. The lots of infection is probably what makes this somewhat worse than bad flu.

      7 |
    • Matthew Mayer Scott Robinson

      I’ve been guilty of a little sarcasm myself so far, so I’m going to listen to your request for understanding, but the salient points in the article still stand strong, and Matt (above, not me) even accepts that Erickson’s use of statistics is absurd. And because this is the *only* argument being put forward, there’s little left to say. We do at some point need to ease restrictions, sure. But the true mortality rate, whilst uncertain, is certainly very high compared to the flu. As has been pointed out ad nauseam, NY’s death rate stands at close to 0.2%. Erickson’s numbers are simply wrong. Like, really wrong.

      And while it’s true that we might be over-cautious, when life is on the line, that’s not a bad thing.

      And when the arguments for rushing back to work include anti-vaccine hysteria, Bill Gates and the deep state (I’m not kidding) and a bizarre notion that the government is doing it to control us, well… well you can see how frustrating this is 🙁

      Peace 🙂

      3 |
    • A. Aron Matthew Mayer

      Tell that to the 26M unemployed and the people standing in line 18 hours for food. Do you think they view it as being a little bit “over-cautious.” This may be worse than the flu but it’s nowhere near the 3.8% mortality rate provided by The WHO.

      5 |
    • Matthew Mayer A. Aron

      They’re alive.

      1 |
    • A. Aron Matthew Mayer

      That statement assumes they wouldn’t be if they went back to work. There is no scenario that shows a majority of them would have severe cases and/or die.

      2 |
    • Matthew Mayer A. Aron

      What are you talking about? Yes, I know, a small percentage of people die. We get that. Everyone gets that.

      Now, assuming you know 100 or so people, choose the 2 that you’re prepared to allow to die as collateral because economy.

      What you are arguing for is monstrous.

      3 |
    • A. Aron Matthew Mayer

      First, know that I am someone who is at risk due to health issues beyond my control. I do not want the responsibility of these people being out of work and starving to save people like me. Your numbers are off it’s not 2 out of 100.  It’s between 1-2 out of 1000. Apparently you are not unemployed or standing in the food line. It lacks compassion to dismiss concerns for these people.

      2 |
    • Matthew Mayer A. Aron

      I have a huge amount of concern for these people. It’s why a strong welfare state and health service is absolutely necessary. My concern is that they don’t die, though.

      Now I will grant that, yes, we cannot be certain of the precise mortality rate, but NY is at 23,000 and counting. And for your 1-2 in a thousand number to be correct, then everyone will have been infected, which is categorically not true. Far less than half of those *tested* were positive. And these were the more likely to have it. The maths isn’t difficult. Assuming a relatively high 30% have had it, tour mortality rate becomes the stuff of fairy-tales. Realistically, we’re looking at 0.5 – 1%. I have 1000 or so “friends” on Facebook. And though I don’t speak to most of them ever, I also don’t wanna choose the 5 to I0 I’d allow to die.

      I wish you health, but cannot accept your ideas.

      A steady well thought-through opening of States when things are under control? Sure.

      But caution.

      *edited from original*

      5 |
    • A. Aron Matthew Mayer

      I’m all for caution. I just don’t think the lockdowns are without consequence. I don’t want people to die. I’m not advocating for 100% return to normal. I think we need social distancing guidelines that can be maintained over a longer timeline. To accuse me of being a monster for caring about the people who are suffering as a result of the lockdowns is not right. It’s also okay that you don’t agree with me.

      8 |
    • Dan Gillette Matthew Mayer

      Your math is off. For your 2 in 100 number to be correct based on 23k deaths the population of New York would have to be 1.15M. It is 10x higher than that, which is why the 2 percent number is 10x lower, i.e. .02

      -1 |
    • Matthew Mayer A. Aron

      I retract “monstrous” and apologise. I think I assumed we were at opposite ends of a spectrum (I do think doing nothing would have been monstrous) but we’re actually closer  pragmatically. Where I live things have been eased, and I am enjoying the walks whilst still distancing.

      I really don’t think states should consider reopening until they have it under control though, and can’t buy comparisons to the flu (Which you’re not making)

      Peace.

      5 |
    • Matthew Berger A. Aron

      I applaud your attempt to have a meaningful dialogue with people who are in denial over the real issue at hand.  It is absolutely untenable to remain in lock-down for any extended period of time.  The discussion was always to shelter and reopen at a pace so that we did not overwhelm the medical system.  You’re welcome to hide from this thing at home individually, but closing down the country is not a solution.  People will get sick, people will die, but if we’re real with the numbers the average age is close to 80 with health issues and the majority of deaths are in nursing homes.  These people are largely not standing in line at Starbucks.

      5 |
    • Matthew Mayer Dan Gillette

      I’ve already said 1-2 percent might be high. Your maths is completely off though, much further than my initial approximation (why is this hard?).

      Let’s dance through this together:

      Population of NY (state): 20,000,00ish

      Deaths by Covid: 23,000 and counting

      100 ÷ 20,000,000 then multiplied by 23,000 = 0.115. Over 1 in every thousand.

      And already 5 times higher than your 0.02. Unless you mis-typed and meant 0.2.

      But given that a) people are still dying and b) the percentage of people who have had it is much lower than 100%  we are looking at a mortality rate that’s probably much closer to 0.5 – 1%.

      Which sounds small, but is actually terrifying.

      7 |
    • A. Aron Matthew Mayer

      Thank you! I hope you enjoy your walks- we need some sun here.

      7 |
    • Dan Gillette Matthew Mayer

      yes i should have added a 0 to get .002, but I was responding to an earlier post where you had claimed 2 out of 100, not 2 out of 1000. Not sure why you add the first step when 23,000 divided by 20,000,000 = .0015 which is 1 or 2 in 1000. If you wanted the final number to represent the number out of 1000 you should have divided 1,000 (not 100) by 20,000,000 and then multiply by 23,000 and end up with 1.15.

      6 |
    • Joe Kambeitz Matthew Mayer

      Terrifying to those with underlying conditions, those w/o not so much
      https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-daily-data-summary-deaths-04282020-1.pdf

      3 |
    • Matthew Mayer Dan Gillette

      100 divided by the number of people living in a place multiplied by the people who have died gives you the percentage of people who have died in a given place. I made that ridiculously clear.

      Ach, I’ve no idea how I can make this any more clear than above.

      When I said choose one or two people out of a hundred from your FB friends list you’d allow to die, I corrected myself, as I wasn’t really paying attention to the actual numbers when I should have been.

      But as I demonstrated above, vastly more than 1 in 1000 will die if they contract the virus. Estimates suggest around 15 per cent of people in NY State have had the virus, meaning the actual mortality rate would be around 0.75 in 100, though this could very easily come in at 1 in 100.

      This is really easy maths. Like, super easy.

      This number of around 1 in 1000 persists though. And it’s wrong.

      To be clear: Erickson is flat-out wrong. So are you on this matter.

       

      6 |
    • Seems right to me. Why divide 100/population first?

      5 |
    • Rob Erlick Matthew Mayer

      “we are looking at a mortality rate that’s probably much closer to 0.5 – 1%.”

      If this is the reason for quarantine (makes no sense and the issues with decreased immunity for healthy people is salient – not to mention antibody testing if accurate enough to reveal exposure- shows the quarantine is not working at all) then we must wonder why no such actions occured with SARs…but even more importantly -= quarantine was based on hospital capacity which was desinged on modeling assumption 3 X your figure.

      Erickson doesn’t seem to be wrong about questioning quaranbtine, nor about over inflated COVID deaths due to insurance motivations by a nationwide industry of financially strapped hospitals which have every motivation (and admit it) to dip into the COVID insurance money by conflating every death with it.  The Italian Government studied their COVID deaths and concluded 99% were the result of other very serious non-COVID complications (Kidney, heart, lung, liver disease, etc).  So we know even the numerator is very likely quite a bit lower – or at least should discriminate between COVID caused and COVID related.

      Erickson’s point about quarantine has not been disproven anywhere on this thread or in the article.

      8 |
    • It’s not apparent that everyone who is exposed develops symptoms, As random testing becomes more prevalent, we will be able to discern the true fatality rate.

      5 |
    • Matthew Mayer Rob Erlick

      Erickson’s use of statistics was absurd. I dont know how many times this needs to be demonstrated.

      And close to 1 in a hundred dying after contracting the disease isn’t concerning for you?

      It’s terrifying.

      And even the most cursory glance across the globe shows that those who implemented quarantine measures quickly saved thousands of lives. Ridiculous amounts. New Zealand. Czech. Norway. California.

      Then New York. Italy. UK….

      How is the pattern not obvious?

      It’s night and day stuff.

      I’ll read about evidence Italy’s numbers are all made up, but I’m guessing any link will probs be Infowars or Breitbart. Until you provide evidence, I’m happy with the official numbers (though contrary to what you think, the chances are they’re underrepresented worldwide)

      10 |
    • See Tree Rob Erlick

      Absolutely. This guy is bringing up irrelevant information [like Erickson not being an MD(he is a DO, which is equivalent)]. Or the fact that we have effectively tested about 2% of the US population [6 million] and 1/6th have been positive so far. Very hard to chalk that up to just being sampling bias for a disease that presents with entirely non-specific symptoms.

      -4 |
    • Iowa isn’t anywhere near .5% or 1% IFR using the lowest end of USC’s blood work.  At the lowest end of USC’s range Iowa is at 2/1000 IFR.  Everyone’s mileage seems to be varying. I’ll be having pizza out on Friday night.

      -1 |
    • GQ Matthew Mayer

      Those same official numbers coming from China?

      5 |
    • Jeff Reuteler Matthew Mayer

      Nonsense.  Ericksons info is correct.  Quarantene is not the answer.

      5 |
    • Jill James Matthew Mayer

      You’re right, Matthew, the ‘official numbers’ are underrepresented, but it is the ACTUAL infection rate that is underrepresented. PCR testing focused ONLY on ‘symptomatic’ cases. PCR testing cannot detect those who were infected and cleared the virus. The focus on symptomatic cases totally ignored the vast numbers of ‘asymptomatic’ cases, which are beginning to be discovered with randomized antibody blood tests in the US and Europe. This research, though preliminary, supports Dr. Erickson’s claims.

      2 |
    • The Italian government did a study.  They discovered 99% of their COVID deaths were the rtesult of other very serious complications.  STUDY – not media.  I only read research papers/studies for information I at least consider.  When I have seen such articles in Breitbart – they link to the actual studies.
      Infowars is not anything conservative.  It’s just hype – and a leftwing media scapegoat to pretend only their sources are valid.
      Here’s the article in Bloomberg (I can find it in any source yo like from left to right of the political spectrum)
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-
      illness-italy-says

      And here’s the study
      https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-COVID-2019_17_marzo-v2.pdf

      4 |
    • Bryan Shine GQ

      chiming in late here, but this may be your nyc number confusion. NYC has 8 million people, 12,509 deaths – Long Island has another 8 million in population, with the additional 5,000 deaths. so for accuracy, 16 million residents, 17,500 ish deaths. That would be a 0.109 % death date for nyc & LI combined.

      6 |
    • Joe Kambeitz Bryan Shine

      That’s really good info! Thanks for sharing

       

      5 |
    • Tom Henderson Bryan Shine

      More people have died from COVID-19 than any flu season since 1967.

      And that’s with social distancing.

      There is no reasonable basis for claiming that it has the same mortality rate as the flu. That’s just not mathematically possible at this point.

      6 |
    • Tom Henderson Jeff Reuteler

      Erickson can’t do math. COVID is deadlier with social distancing than the flu has been without it.

      No intelligent person can claim it has the same death rate.

       

      6 |
    • Jill James Tom Henderson

      Tom, Sweden has no lockdown. Schools are open, as are restaurants, and people are still going to work. The only restrictions are on gathering of more than 50 persons, and access to nursing homes and hospitals.

      Sweden has a per capita death rate from COVID-19 that is lower than the UK, Italy and Switzerland, all of which HAVE lockdowns.

      4 |
    • Jill James Tom Henderson

      Tom, relax and visit the CDC website. There you will find the actual and historical American death rates and the main causes.

      According to the CDC (don’t look at the Gates funded Johns Hopkins site, or any of the mainstream media sites), to date, there have been 34,521 deaths from COVID-19. Meanwhile, there were over 61,000 American deaths from the flu in 2017-2018 season, which was a bad year.

      Remember two things, (a) deaths ‘from’ COVID-19 is different than deaths ‘with’ COVID-19. The vast majority of people affected have been over 65 with one or more serious medical conditions, which means COVID-19 may have weakened them, but it may not have been the ’cause of death’, and (b) new research is coming out on tests of population samples (US & Europe) that are finding that about 3-4% of people have been infected, and cleared the virus, which means that the death rate per capita from COVID-19 is far far lower than is being reported.

      It is important to note that more than 700,000 Americans have died from ALL CAUSES since January 1st (which is within normal limits). But people are now dying more frequently of cancer and heart disease than before because of the lockdown.

      6 |
    • JAMI Jill James

      Correct –

      4 |
    • Joe Kambeitz Jill James

      This is incredible info.

      Direct link to the data: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID19/

       

       

      5 |
    • So many people don’t seem to get this, Jill. I don’t know why. Ultimately, we will have a much better approximation of the picture with antibody testing, but I wonder how many will actually admit they were wrong (there are all kind of statistical gymnastics that can be used to hold onto fiction).

      2 |